Almost seven years have passed since the outbreak of the Syrian Revolution in 2011 when the first demonstrations broke out in the capital Damascus and the southern city of Deraa calling for the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and his government. The subsequent seven years have been plagued by a full-scale civil war, terrorist incidents and generalised armed conflict, leading to the displacement of nearly five million Syrian citizens outside Syria, according to UN figures.

On 6 August, US President Donald Trump set into motion the first round of renewed economic sanctions against Iran, in accordance with the decision he announced 8 May to unilaterally withdraw from the nuclear accord signed between Tehran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) on 14 July 2015. The first round of sanctions targets the Iranian automotive sector, trading in gold and other precious metals, and financial transactions related to the Iranian rial.

I remember waking up in panic on 25 January 2011 thinking I had overslept and missed the school bus. To my pleasant surprise, school was cancelled that day amid eventually confirmed rumours of a revolution. For the rest of the day, my family and I were glued to the television, watching in astonishment as chaos unfolded in Tahrir Square.

The first major global conflict of the 21st century broke out in the Middle East. It didn t involve Iran. ISIS wasn t a factor. Surprisingly, even Israel found itself on the sidelines. The initial volley of shots in the battle for the post-US period came from Saudi Arabia. The power struggle was caused by Washington s withdrawal from the world. This week has seen two incidents which suggest the Kingdom s conduct is less constrained by Western ways. First, Canada s ambassador had a fairly common critique following the detention of a women s rights activist. Instead of issuing their own statement, Riyadh simply cut off ties. Second, an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen that killed dozens of children. Instead of apologizing, the Saudis defended the airstrike, calling it a legitimate military operation. The message seems to be: we no longer feel the need to conform to external expectations.

Learn. Engage. Make an impact.” The website politics.fb.com offers users a guide for using Facebook to engage with voters and build online communities. If you are running for office, you can establish a special Facebook page. You can then use the “issues” section on the page to show people where you stand on key policies and the “endorsements” section to highlight your support.

Sustainability took another step forward in Egypt last month. On 18 July, the government announced a regulatory framework for the issuance of green bonds to promote sustainable development. The challenge, however, will be finding projects qualified for the “green” designation, especially since the definition of what constitutes a sustainable project is yet to be standardised in Egypt — or in most markets for that matter. And implementation and enforcement mechanisms for these standards are even less defined.

In its efforts to boost the Egyptian economy to meet the nation s aspirations for a place among the world s economic powerhouses the government has been entirely focused on economic growth statistics and has overlooked one of the major causes of the economic woes of the past seven decades — over-population. Reaching a staggering 97 million in 2018, Egypt s population has grown at an alarming rate over recent decades due to improved healthcare, uncontrolled birth rates and a lack of awareness of the escalating problem.

There was a jarring sense of déjà vu last week in Canada as images of yet another attack on innocent civilians in Toronto played out on newscasts. A reportedly mentally ill man went on a gun rampage on Sunday evening in Toronto s popular Danforth neighborhood, killing two people and injuring 13 others. The attack occurred less than three months after a man drove a van into pedestrians in another busy part of Toronto, killing 10 people. And those were just in 2018. In January 2017, in Quebec City, a man using a restricted firearm killed six people and injured others. And in September of that year, in Edmonton, a man carried out a stabbing and van attack, injuring five.

In a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Monday, 16 July, in Helsinki, US President Donald Trump startled the world and the American political establishment by defending President Putin, only three days after 12 Russian intelligence officers had been indicted for meddling into the 2016 US presidential elections. Commenting on Putin s remarks denying Russian interference, President Trump said: “He [Putin] just said it is not Russia. I will say this, I don t see any reason why it would be.”

The Egyptian people are floating on a sea of fake news, in other words of “rumours”. And despite the fact that the majority of Egyptians know that rumours have been controlling a great deal of their lives for the past seven years, they still think that whatever “news” they share on Facebook, or “facts” they retweet on Twitter, or even stories they retell in coffee shops, at bus stops or in metro carriages, are the truth and nothing but the truth. However, the only truth here is that thousands of rumours can spread across Egypt in days. Most of these emanate from social media, get shared, retweeted and retold by various people, and then go back to social media again, where the cycle becomes complete.

Immigration has been a source of controversy and debate in Western countries for the past two decades. Some believe that new immigrants have been the cause of social problems including crime, poverty and unemployment. There may be some truth in the view that such problems have resulted from the unplanned influx of immigrants to mostly Western countries in Europe and North America and the inability of many of them to integrate into their new societies.

Imagine a country so small that the whole ski-in-the-morning, beach-in-the-afternoon thing is feasible. That s Montenegro, a country on the Balkan Peninsula, full of natural wonders and beauty and where people are known for their candor, enthusiasm and hospitality. But when the leader of the democratic free world, Donald Trump, throws our country, into the chaotic news cycle -- or under the bus -- by calling us "very aggressive" people, we have to stand up for ourselves. Has Montenegro s history been perfect? No, but we have tried to persevere, and we need like-minded allies to continue our efforts.

Anyone who follows developments on the Libyan scene would say that Egypt has approached the crisis with no hidden agenda. From the outset, Egypt stood for the safety and security which are so vital to the country. Rather than veering towards supporting for guerrilla warfare or militias, Egypt identified the Libyan army as a force for stability early on in the conflict. Egypt s actions to Islamist extremists have been responsible, perceiving their danger, and drawing no distinction between extremists and those acting according to an ideology.

Five days before the first American-Russian summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu flew to Moscow to meet Putin on Wednesday, 11 July. It was his third visit to the Russian capital this year, and his eleventh since Russia had begun its military intervention in Syria in September 2015. The main topic between the two leaders on 11 July was the future Iranian role and military presence in Syria and how far Moscow could have an impact on future Iranian behaviour in Syria after the war comes to an end, which could happen sooner rather than later depending on which directions the political winds go in light of the American-Russian summit.

Followers of our written and audio-visual media might think that we live in a tiny village, cut off from the world and too involved in our domestic concerns to care about what is happening elsewhere. But could it be that what is happening elsewhere directly affects our major concerns? During my recent trip abroad, a French journalist asked me a painful question about the Palestinian cause, which we claim to defend as the Arabs central cause. “Is Palestine, to the Arabs, now like the Andalusian dream?” he asked.

The victors in World War II split into two camps, one in the East led by the Soviet Union at the head of the Warsaw Pact, and the other in the West led by the US at the head of NATO. By the end of the 1940s, the two sides began to face off in the Cold War which only heated up in those remote Third World countries that won their independence in the 1950s and 1960s and then were unsure what to do with it, such as whether they should attach themselves to the Western camp or to the Eastern camp or play both ends against the middle beneath the banner of “nonalignment”.

During his recent trip to Europe US President Donald Trump faced a new challenge with his European allies over the status of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Some 70 per cent of the costs of this are paid by the United States, while the rest is shared by the other members of the alliance. Trump urged European leaders to pay their share of the costs of NATO, calculated at defence costs of two per cent of GDP. NATO defence expenditures rose in 2017 to $946 billion, over $616 billion of which is paid by the US. NATO defence expenditure is now equal to some 70 per cent of the world total, and the burden carried by the United States to sustain NATO, established in 1949 to counter the former Soviet Union, is enormous, with the country spending some 3.58 per cent of its GDP on defence.

Donald Trump came to Helsinki to clear his name of collusion. Instead he soiled it and with it, dragged the world further down a path toward previously unthinkable instability. It is 70 years since the future of the western democratic alliance has been so precariously and ambiguously poised between chaos and certainty. Standing next to Putin following their secretive two-hour meeting, it seemed the pair wanted nothing more than deny they ever knew each other before Trump s election.

Who are the potential Mandelas of our generation?" The question hung in the air after I had asked it. I didn t intend to, as young South Africans hosted me at a Cape town event May this year, but it had slipped out as we engaged in an honest interrogation of our contributions to our nations. But there it was, and the room was silent as a first response. It was a powerful indictment. Chude Jideonwo "Julius Malema has such a potential to be a once-in-a-lifetime-leader," we continued. "He has the courage and the charisma. But that kind of leadership requires clarity of character. How do we get that?" As we celebrate Nelson Mandela s Centenary, that question hangs in the continental air. Of course, to be sure, it is a question of global consequence.

The eyes of the world are now on Donald Trump s performance in Helsinki next week against a formidable foe, Russian President Vladimir Putin. As Trump emerges from administering a fresh round of tongue-lashings to his NATO allies, not to mention a contentious visit to the United Kingdom, many of us will be keenly observing which leader -- the American or the Russian -- out-mansplains the other. The smart money is on Putin, a sly former KGB agent with a black belt in judo. But unlike the heady days of glasnost, there will be no chic, Raisa Gorbachev-type first lady from the Russian side to satisfy the appetites of fashion watchers. With Putin s rumored partner, gold-winning Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, rarely making public appearances, Melania Trump will have the stage all to herself.

The Global Food Security Act, an Obama-era piece of legislation that marshals foreign aid to speed up agricultural growth and reduce hunger in poor countries, will expire this year if it is not renewed. Fortunately, it seems to have bipartisan support, as evidenced last month when the Republican-controlled Senate reauthorized the legislation for another five years. It will soon face a vote in the House, and its odds there are relatively high -- with 107 cosponsors (including 30 Republicans) already lined up. But even if the bill passes both houses, it remains to be seen whether President Donald Trump will sign it into law. If the administration s stance on another very similar Obama-era initiative -- the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, which increases food security by boosting agricultural productivity, predominantly in African countries -- is anything to go by, the chances for renewal appear quite low. On the one-year anniversary of the Trump presidency, the Treasury Department declared the US would pull out of that program.