Corruption is the buzzword today. Everyone worldwide is talking about corruption. By definition, corruption is generally known as “dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery”. It also refers to bribery or kickback. Transparency International, the anti-corruption watchdog, defines corruption as “the abuse of power for private gains”. Transparency International explains that corruption has a wider scope than bribery, which is frequently believed to be synonymous with corruption associated with government officials.

Egypt is set to explode. When and how is dependent on who pulls the trigger and why. Those who had the opportunity to peruse the previous article came to quickly understand that Egypt has galloped to a 3, on a danger scale of 1-5, in 2.5 years of de jure Al-Sisi rule. A combination of human rights abuses, security failure, and economic failures have each contributed to increasing pressure on a regime that history may judge as, potentially, the most brutal in modern Egyptian history.

Egypt seeks to move the economic growth process forward with every means possible, whether through local or Arab or foreign investment. This growth is the way to raise standards of life, create jobs and enable people to earn their living by themselves with dignity. If economic growth is accompanied with social justice it is easy to consolidate political and security stability, which is based on social consent not on an authoritarian grip.

It was recently announced that Egypt would receive a loan from the World Bank amounting to $3 billion, a third of which has already been delivered.

The Kerdasa Massacre, August 2013. Fifty militants storm the police station, killing 14 policemen. Graphic visuals of dead and mutilated bodies splashed all over traditional Egyptian news outlets and online platforms.

In an extraordinary meeting of the Doctors’ Syndicate General Assembly, an unprecedented 10,000 doctors gathered from all around the country to defend the dignity of medical professionals, which is synonymous with the dignity of Egypt. Behind them stood masses of Egyptians from different professional syndicates, along with average citizens, to express both their solidarity with the doctors and outrage at the Minister of Interior's hostility.

Saudi Arabia is confronting a perfect storm of challenges: economic, political, social, ideological, and geopolitical. How it weathers the storm will likely depend on how it handles the inevitable restructuring of the problematic partnership between the Al Saud ruling family and the Wahhabi ulama or religious scholars, on whom the former rely for their legitimacy.

I listened to President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s speech and I found myself wondering how Egyptians will react to his call to donate a pound every morning to collect a total of EGP 4bn in a year via text messages. I became more concerned with the spread of upbeat emotional statements through various media and social networking sites that have inflated the initiative, saying it will bring billions and fix the inherited economic problems.

Authoritarianism makes for bad journalism — often, very bad journalism. The truism is self-evident and more than amply demonstrated by lived experience, not only in Egypt but everywhere in the world.

I don’t think I can say anything about the late Mohammed Hassanein Heikal’s work in journalism, politics, or the public sphere that hasn’t already been said by his friends, colleagues, and students who had the chance to work closely with him throughout his decades-long journey. But I would like to share two of my experiences with him, one personal and one political.

Italian researcher Giulio Regeni was killed in a tragic, horrific and shocking way to any human conscience. The Italian people deserve from Egypt and its hospitable people the warmest condolences for the painful and saddening death. This incident came at a time when Egyptian-Italian relations are flourishing, especially in light of similar, or identical, stances on several regional and international issues, as well as mutual cooperation between the two countries.

By the fifth anniversary of the 25 January Revolution, the conspiracy theory had become a mainstream way for many to understand the uprising as well as its causes and repercussions. In the beginning, talk of conspiracy was untenable and weak and sometimes merely a joke, but it gained momentum and more advocates have since developed mechanisms, channels, and stories to promote the theory. Today, it has become a version that competes with the events of the revolution that are still fresh in our minds.

I met Maya Morsi, who was selected as the chairwoman of the National Council for Women this month, many years ago when she was working at UN Women. She is a young Egyptian mother, an expert on women's affairs and one of the best public policy experts on social gender in Egypt, and perhaps even in all of the Arab world.

Fleeting hopes that Egypt’s militant, street battled-hardened football fans may have breached general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s repressive armour were dashed with this week’s sentencing of 15 supporters on charges of attempting to assassinate the controversial head of storied Cairo club Al-Zamalek SC.

There is no doubt that we are at a critical moment historically, the dominating slogan of which is “hard work and dedication” to build Egypt’s future. I also believe that everyone wishes to see the inclusion of “justice and law enforcement” in the slogan of the moment, without exceptions. This is evidenced by the constitution and the law’s attention to determining the age of retirement in the state’s administrative body. Even the presidential term is clearly and transparently identified in the constitution, and its modification is prohibited under any circumstances. The purpose of all this is to provide an opportunity to introduce new blood to the Egyptian state and its institutions.

I will try my best to be as brief and as concise as possible in this piece for more than one reason. First, the whole issue surrounding Giulio Regeni’s death is incredibly distressing, to the extent that I’m incredibly uncomfortable writing about it. Second, this is a newspaper, after all, and its readers are not necessarily willing to tolerate the vast details associated with his death and its significance. Third, after everything that’s been written about the brutal death of Regeni, I hardly doubt that I can come up with anything new. Therefore, this piece is not about human rights violations, or freedom of expression, or the vulgar resurrection of the police state, or even how the Egyptian regime is so adamant in its distortion of the facts and offers half truths; I honestly don’t think anyone is in need of an opinion piece to realise that all those things are an everyday reality in Egypt. This piece is about the significance of Regeni’s death to us researchers, academics, journalists and ordinary Egyptians who have an interest in the sharing of knowledge and the pursuit of truth.

It is indisputable that Egypt’s administration needs drastic reforms to be able to meet the requirements for any kind of development, and to turn the slogans of the 2011 revolution and 2013 uprising into a reality. The ancient bureaucratic body lost its professional competency over the time, as well as its political and ideological neutrality, soon becoming part of the problem rather than a solution.

They are killed. Or maimed, threatened, traumatized, harassed – the list unfortunatelygoes on drawing a picture of a profession whose risks are on the rise.

I wrote earlier about security intrusions that can damage the country as well as the president. I also wrote about an assistant professor at the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University who is preparing her PhD at a university in Europe, while security agencies sent a letter to the university requesting that she be sent back and her studies terminated. I watched on YouTube a phone-in by the president of Cairo University to Gaber El-Armouti’s programme where he read out my article. In the phone call, the university president said it is nothing to do with the university, adding that there may be security reasons relating to the state's higher interests. He also said that anyone can be wrong, even the security agencies.

The 25 January Revolution in 2011 and the 30 June uprising in 2013 reflected one of the noblest and most peaceful events, in which the Egyptian youth led the revolutionary vanguard, overcoming the restrictions surrounding them.

Gaber Nassar sits in his ornate office, behind a huge oak desk covered with piles of papers as he explains why the university he leads recently banned women from teaching while wearing the niqab, a veil that covers the face but reveals the eyes. "Everyone has the right to dress how they want, but on one condition: Don't break the rules," says Nassar, the president of Cairo University, one of Egypt's oldest academic institutions.