The Arabic root aqala (from which the word aql, or reason, is derived) appears 49 times in the Quran, and every time except once it appears in the form of a verb conjugated in the present tense, most of the time in the plural, as taaqiloun, yaaqiloun, and so on. The verb taaqiloun is repeated 24 times and yaaqiloun 22 times, whereas each of the verbs aqala, naaqil and yaaqil, being the first person singular and plural and the third person singular of the verb, appears only once.

France is currently celebrating the start of the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Suez Canal, since it is the country where the project, in its final form, was born. It was also the birthplace of Ferdinand de Lesseps and the headquarters of the Suez Canal Company before it was nationalised. This drives us to think about the dialectical relationship between the Suez Canal and the Egyptian state, recalling the famous quote, “We want the Canal to be for Egypt, not that Egypt be for the Canal.”

In 2005, President George W. Bush stunned his supporters by nominating his White House counsel and former personal lawyer, Harriet Miers, to the Supreme Court. While Miers was beloved by staffers inside the White House, even right-wing commentators considered Bush s decision reckless. "However nice, helpful, prompt and tidy she is, Harriet Miers isn t qualified to play a Supreme Court justice on The West Wing let alone be a real one," Ann Coulter wrote at the time.

On April 4 and 5, Sudan held a meeting in Khartoum, attended by foreign ministers and intelligence chiefs of the three countries concerned with the filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). On the second day, the meeting went on for many hours, with newspaper reports estimating it reached 16 hours of continuous negotiation. At the end of the day, Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour declared that they had not reached any agreement despite long hours of discussion.

The US, British and French attack on Syria over the weekend was the real elephant in the room during the one-day Arab Summit meeting held in Saudi Arabia on Monday. While the Arab leaders listed the various challenges that face the region, topped by the crimes committed by Israel against innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza over the past three weeks and the illegitimate decision by the Trump administration in the US to recognise Occupied East Jerusalem as Israel s capital, there was hardly any mention of the unjustified Western attack on Syria, even though it took place only one day before the Arab leaders held their meeting.

I apologise for not knowing who Ahmed Khaled Tawfik was. This should not be understood as a form of snobbishness towards him or his writings. Rather, it is an admission of ignorance that is unforgivable in someone such as myself who works in the fields of thought, culture and the media. As it happened, it was the man s death that suddenly brought his existence to my attention. From the flood of information about him I learned that he was a pioneering writer and a prominent figure in the social networking world.

The image of a pilot under stress, making a heroic emergency landing with a disabled plane, is the heart of lots of movies. "Sully" Sullenberger, the cool-headed pilot who landed US Airways Flight 1589 on the Hudson River in 2009, was played by Tom Hanks in a film based on the few minutes after a flock of birds damaged both engines and Sully was forced to land without power. Now, rethink that image. That is what happened Tuesday after the emergency landing of a Southwest Airlines plane in Philadelphia. An engine broke up in flight, the debris shattered a window and the rapid decompression nearly sucked out a passenger, who later died.

President El-Sisi s victory with 97% of the votes displays Egyptians desire to complete the country s current path of development and reformation. It is now necessary to inquire about the expectations of this economic reform programme in achieving the outcomes desired by the sweeping majority of Egyptian society in the face of the current socio-economic conditions. Given the Egyptian parliament s discussion of the economic and social plan, as well as new budget legislations for the fiscal year 2018/2019, now is the time. We are in the stage of generating new economic policy in joint cooperation between the presidency, the government and the parliament. Discussion of this legislation must take into consideration its effectiveness in improving the society s living standards, increasing employment, absorbing the surplus labour and reducing price hikes.

Fox host Sean Hannity just helped the government s case against President Donald Trump s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, tremendously. Even irony itself was not prepared for that development. Courtroom drama peaked Monday at a hearing in lower Manhattan when Michael Cohen s lawyer, Stephen Ryan, reluctantly revealed to Judge Kimba Wood -- a judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York -- that Cohen s mystery third client was Hannity, the bombastic, unconditional champion of citizen-turned-candidate-turned-President, Donald Trump.

Confronted with a con man -- the greatest and most dangerous con man on earth -- James Comey, the ultimate cop, carefully noted every move Donald Trump made. He also took the measure of the President and those he held close. And he monitored his own responses to Trump, which included feelings of alarm and the sense that the country is in peril. "Our president must embody respect and adhere to the values that are at the core of this country," the former FBI director told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News. "The most important being truth. This President is not able to do that. He is morally unfit to be president."

Electing judge Bahaa Abu Shoka as the head of Egypt s Wafd Party is a qualitative leap for the old party at this stage in its history, and could perhaps represent the beginning of reviving partisan life in the country. Over the past eight years, the Wafd Party has witnessed a decline, divisions and prominent figures leaving the party due to the predominance of a view of a utilitarian nature in the party that is more suitable for business purposes than for such an old and historic party full of competent figures.

Fifteen years after it started, the Iraq war has nearly destroyed the country, one of the most prosperous in the Middle East, and destabilised the whole region by intensifying internecine and religious conflicts and giving rise to new and violent groups. And the human and material costs of the war keep mounting. In addition to the American soldiers who were killed or injured, the war has had a considerable negative effect on the US economy. The war has also had a negative impact on US troops morale There has also been a high rate of suicides prevalent among those returning from the war.

Tens of thousands of men, women, elderly people and children have taken part in popular protests to affirm the Palestinian people s hold on their homeland and the right of refugees to return to the homes from which they were driven. Once again, the unity of the Palestinian people has been reaffirmed through parallel protests in the 1948 Land and in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and wherever the Palestinians are located abroad.

A boy was intent on personalising his brand-new electronic device, a smartphone of the latest generation. Since he was religious, he did not forget to download the Quran, among other things that best reflected his personality, onto the phone. During the downloading process, however, he headed towards the bathroom, though not until he had stopped the download. In the middle of his way there, he stopped. Could he enter the bathroom with his smartphone, now that it carried the Quran? Wouldn t that be a violation of the Sacred Book?

In my conversations with customers across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, a few key patterns and themes have become clear. Chief financial officers (CFOs) recognise that the role of corporate finance needs to change to keep pace with the world around them. Rapid changes in consumer technologies, new regulations, and a flood of millennials entering the workforce are forcing the world of business to adapt. Those companies that cannot keep pace run the risk of becoming extinct. In extensive talks with customers, partners, researchers, and subject-matter experts, we have identified five things that global CFOs should focus on in the year ahead.

In his first overseas trip since becoming North Korean leader in 2011, Kim Jong-un boarded an armoured train and crossed the Yalu River that separates North Korea and China to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping late last month. This Chinese-North Korean Summit meeting was the first of its kind between the two leaders. Relations between China and North Korea have been frosty of late, particularly after the American-Chinese Summit meeting in Florida in April 2017 where United States President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping agreed to cooperate on the North Korean issue.

Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, 50 years ago on April 4, 1968, setting off a period of mourning, reflection and anger that gripped America. He was in Memphis to rally support for striking sanitation workers, who were protesting unsafe working conditions, and while on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel (now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum), he was shot once and fatally by James Earl Ray, from the bathroom of a nearby boarding house. By the age of 39, King had become a primary leader of the civil rights movement and had been active since the 1950s as a minister and founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was an instrumental figure in protests (in Montgomery, Washington, Selma and elsewhere) and in the passage of landmark civil and voting rights legislation. He had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize at 35. In the last years of his life, King faced criticism from some African-American activists who wanted him to employ more confrontational strategies for change. At the same time, he had become more outspoken on issues of poverty and the need to end the war in Vietnam, significantly in the "Riverside Church" speech, delivered in New York a year to the day before his death.

The Baseera Center is currently considered one of the most important research centers in Egypt, although there are other research centers which are older and larger. Perhaps Baseera has established this reputation for its objectivity, impartiality, independence, and accessibility of presentation for the results of its studies of public opinion. In early 2018, Baseera Center asked a representative sample of Egyptians about their wishes for the new year. The two most important aspirations of the Egyptians were: to obtain stable employment, and the success of their children in education. The desire to get rich or to travel abroad is no longer at the forefront of Egyptian wishes, as was the case in previous years, particularly during the last quarter of the 20th century.

This morning, a flurry of major news from the Korean Peninsula has set the Korea-watching world aflutter. It appears that major diplomatic breakthroughs have been made between Pyongyang and Seoul. But before you break out the good soju, it is worth examining what s been reported and what it actually means. A team of high-ranking South Korean officials attended a four-hour dinner with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang. This was the first ever meeting between South Korean officials and Kim.

In the past week, both Erin Burnett of CNN and Katy Tur of MSNBC have engaged in a national conversation about evangelicals and forgiving a most controversial subject: Donald Trump. Bob Vander Plaats While there is value in these discussions, there is danger in looking at forgiveness and faith through the lens of politics. As we head into Easter weekend, I want us to look higher than headlines -- to look through God s eyes, rather than our own.

Egypt s National Elections Committee will officially announce the results of the presidential elections on Monday 2 April, and it is virtually certain that President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi will win a second term until 2022. In the light of the debate before, during and after the elections, it is important to discuss the goals and challenges facing Al-Sisi during his second term in office, which will officially begin in June.