Egyptian-general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s efforts to lend legitimacy to parliamentary elections scheduled for this spring have gotten off to a murky start with the appointment of a controversial, reportedly United Arab Emirates-backed, human rights NGO as one of five foreign election monitors.

There is no doubt that the United States of America is by far the most controversial nation among Arabs. Consecutive US Administrations have somehow managed to cultivate an intense love-hate relationship with millions of Arabs. The valid question ‘Why do they hate us?’, raised in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, can more appropriately be replaced by another relevant question: ‘How can they hate us and love us at the same time?’ The irony here is that, to a great extent, the very same Arabs who hate the United States for its actions, admire many of its qualities.

If Sinai sinks so will Al-Sisi. At least 30 Egyptians, mostly soldiers, are dead in Sinai because Egyptian leadership couldn’t protect them. We inhabit a bottom line world and the bottom line is: Thursday, 29 January 2015, marking the second time in under one hundred days that a major attack by Wilayat Sina (State of Sinai) (previously known as Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis) has shaken the Egyptian nation and taken precious lives. Forty eight hours later, there are questions ringing so loudly in the ears of the public they threaten deafness.

Violence holds a huge cost for our world. Globally, the cost runs to more than 11% of the world’s GDP. But this is not mostly about the highly visible violence that dominates TV and news

Four years after January 25, after two revolutions and two constitutions, after the election and dissolution of parliament and now the approach of new elections, after the death and injury of thousands of civilians, policemen, and army personnel, after investigations and fact-finding commissions that have shed little light on the facts, after several governments and dozens of ministers, after an economic recession and declining tourism and investment—after all of this, no one can dispute that Egyptians are exhausted and that they fervently wish for stability, security, and economic development. There is no one in Egypt who has not paid a price over the last four years, though some have paid more dearly than others. But we now have two paths ahead of us.

Beginning on 28 January, Cairo will play host to publishers, authors, literary agents, as well as avid readers from around the world. Brought together by the Cairo International Book Fair, the oldest and largest book fair in the Arab World, these participants will explore potential partnerships, learn best practices from each other, as well as discuss trends that are shaping the industry.

They took them to a room where the female security guard started frisking them. They complained about the overzealous female security guard. The female security guard asked them to undress completely. “I could see the soldiers and officers standing outside watching what is going on inside the room” Jihan said. “All this was done by our military, the one who claimed they protected the revolution. If it was the security police I would understand it, but this our military. I just got rid of an old corrupt regime, to get this?”

History will always remember policemen’s role in keeping the peace and security, and protecting human rights.” This is one of the statements Al-Sisi made in his 30-minute police-glorifying speech during the celebration of Police Day which coincides with the 25 January 2011 Revolution. This is not a coincidence of course; as everyone knows, people initially rose against continuous police brutality under a dictatorship characterised by being a police state, where police has complete impunity and absolute authority over the people of Egypt.

Prophet Muhammad has been one of the top defenders of the freedom of speech, and from there we go. Is it worth it to take to the streets to fight a deep European behaviour, or to dig deeply in the European values and try to perceive and influence it? I argue that Charlie Hebdo is a side war, besides the current despotism taking over the Arab world.

The homeland, today, is not Egypt. The homeland is the place where you can close the door on yourself and your spouse and children, safe and reassured that nobody will raid your house to humiliate you in front of your family and rob you of your dignity without any legal or moral justification, and without the slightest hope of prosecution, just because of the ideas in your head, or words written here and there. If you even think of prosecuting whoever did this, be prepared for a wave of revenge that could end up with you killed or imprisoned, and the destruction of your life as well as the lives of those around you.

There is a war, or rather wars, taking place in the Middle East between political Islam and ruling regimes, and most observers note that on one side of these wars stands a group of states and governments while the other includes religious, extremist, and militant groups and organisations. The current scene may bring to mind the era of the sixties in Latin America and perhaps even East Asia, when a number of states and governments loyal to the United States in Latin and South America entered into various wars against leftist groups and organisations at the time.

As the world is reacting with justified condemnation to the tragic events in Paris, the same condemnation should be extended to industrialised countries that have resorted to violence and torture in their recent history. In addition, those countries not only have used these techniques themselves but have exported them to other countries.

I had the opportunity of being present for the Christmas Coptic mass at the Abbasiya Cathedral last Tuesday and witness the president’s surprise and historical visit, the first of its kind, and the significance of which will be remembered for years to come.

While the world has generally seen success with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – half the proportion of hunger and poverty, get all kids into school and drastically reduce child mortality – drawn up nearly 15 years ago, not all promises will be achieved.

Iraq is facing a “double shock” from the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) insurgency and the global plunge in oil prices. While the new government led by Prime Minister Haidar Al- Abadi was formed with the express objective of dealing with the insurgency and addressing the humanitarian disaster it has caused, it is now facing another threat, this time of an economic nature, which brings into sharp focus the underlying vulnerabilities inherent in the country’s heavy reliance on oil. A recent IMF mission discussed these challenges with Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari and Deputy Central Bank Governor Zuhair Ali Akbar and their staff.

Just like Al-Qaeda’s audacious attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on 11 September 2001, the raid by suspected jihadist militants in Paris on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo will have far-reaching repercussions on multiculturalism. The pursuit of multiculturalism was an attempt by European nations to adjust to the fact that they had become immigrant societies.

From a Western perspective, one can see why it is convenient to propagate the Charlie Hebdo massacre as a direct attack on their way of life, on the values they perceive their societies to have been built on, and how global jihadism is a real – nay – the only threat the modern world currently faces. Commence operations ‘tighten borders’, ‘alienate immigrants’, right-wing politicians: politicise the massacre; simultaneously. A pattern that has become so predictable since 9/11, yet the realisation that this is essentially not decreasing terrorist threats has not yet dawned.

“People talk about human rights, but what about God’s rights?” said Pope Tawadros in his sermon on the eve of Coptic Christmas on 6 January. These words, and most others in the same sermon rang hollow, as I recalled the opening lines of chapter thirteen in the book of Corinthians: “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's president opened the new year with a dramatic call for a "revolution" in Islam to reform interpretations of the faith entrenched for hundreds of years, which he said have made the Muslim world a source of "destruction" and pitted it against the rest of the world.

There is a way to make the poor of this world $500bn better off, but this solution is rarely discussed. This matters, because the international community is gearing up to produce the next set of development goals for 2015-2030, to follow on from the Millennium Development Goals. $2.5tr in development aid, plus unknown trillions from national budgets, hangs in the balance of these goals so getting our priorities right is vital. Spending money on poor targets is possibly a wasted opportunity to do much more good elsewhere.

On Saturday 15 November, a court of law should pass its verdict, at the elementary level, on a lawsuit filed by three lawyers who demand to have the Salafist Al-Nour Party dissolved for allegedly violating the constitution. The premise of the lawsuit is that the party, which was established as a the political arm of a broad base of the Salafists in the post 25 January political phase, is violating the constitution approved in January of this year which bans the license of any party that has a religious base.