Egypt has been making impressive progress in straightening up its balance sheet in recent months. Steep cuts in energy subsidies coupled with a drop in world oil prices have given the Middle East’s most populous country some fiscal breathing space, following three years of increasing budget deficits, mounting debt and reduced foreign currency reserves.

Every year, the world joins in a worldwide and national campaign between 25 November (International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women) and 10 December (Human Rights Day) to send a message that violence against women is a violation of human rights and that it must be ended.

Very little has changed with regards to Egypt’s trajectory of descent into a social and political abyss ever since its security forces dispersed the Islamist sit-ins using great force and even much greater impunity. The slope of decline into a more oppressive police state has indeed been very slippery and while there’s room for more damage, what has already transpired will take years and years to fix.

The vast majority of people were struck with the impression that the judgment acquitting Mubarak was not simply a court ruling issued by an independent judge acquitting Mubarak from specific crimes, but instead served to acquit the personality of Mubarak and his regime in general.

Bishoy Armia Boulous who currently on remand in Tora prison following his release on 20/7/13 and his re-arrest same day for conversion from Islam to Christianity receive inhuman treatment in Egypt prisons, he is being tortured physical and mentally.

In a recent interview on CBN News, Andrew White, an Anglican priest known as the “Vicar of Baghdad,” tried to recount the horrific atrocities Christians in Iraq are suffering at the hands of the Islamic State. After explaining how Christian minorities fled Baghdad to Ninevah when Islamic militants began terrorizing them and bombing their churches, White said:

At the end of last week, a statement was issued by the King of Saudi Arabia announcing the Riyadh supplementary agreement, whose goal is to clear the air in the Gulf. He hoped that moving forward with the agreement would bring about cooperation, free of past disagreements. Just one day before this, an announcement was made that the Saudi, Emirati, and Bahraini ambassadors would return to their posts in Qatar, representing a significant step forward in ending the Gulf crisis. But will this actually lead to the end of the crisis, and has Qatar responded to the demands of the Gulf states?

Perhaps it would be repetitive to say that Egypt is standing before a decisive moment in its history, one upon which its future and destiny depends for years to come. This moment became extended since the January 25 Revolution broke out against deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak and his corrupt and unjust regime until now.

When almost everybody thought that Lionel Messi’s best times were in the past, the Argentine player became the top scorer both in the Spanish and in the Champions League – an extraordinary achievement – proving again his exceptional qualities. There is, however, another side to Messi that is as remarkable and much less well known: his work as a humanitarian.

Mubarak’s regime entered into decline when contradiction and conflict reached their peak among the ruling class and junta, as with what happened previously within the 1952 family.

Culture matters! And when it comes to Egyptian politics, it matters enormously. In the absence of a proper political structure, where the existing structure is often altered to better serve the ruler, culture plays an essential role in mobilising Egyptians.

Qatar is signalling the rejection of demands of human rights and trade union activists to grant trade union and collective bargaining rights to its majority migrant worker population with the detention and likely deportation of more than 100 predominantly South Asian labourers who went on strike to protest low pay as well as poor working and living conditions.

This week concludes the visit by an IMF delegation, the first in Egypt since March 2013, though this visit is dedicated solely to assessing current economic conditions and offering counsel, with no specific program commitments to follow. Preparations are also well underway for the economic conference for donors and investors, scheduled for March 13–14, and for the projects and legislation to be announced at the conference. In substantive terms, over the last six months the government has implemented several major policy decisions. It has reduced energy subsidies, increased fertilizer prices, developed a new distribution system for bread and other subsidized items, raised corporate and personal income taxes, launched the Suez Canal project, and expanded infrastructure projects.

Human rights groups and trade unions have stepped up pressure on Qatar to reform its restrictive labour system, and have expanded their campaign to include all six wealthy members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Innovation in developing economies is evolving rapidly, but can still improve in terms of marketing. Businesses in emerging economies can make profits and can positively affect the livelihoods of people. In the next generation, multinational corporations can expand to vast un- and underserved consumer groups in developing countries. Executives need to redefine their roles and relationships across companies and radically depart from traditional business models through new partnerships and structures.

I recently visited the village of Beir Anbar in the district of Koft, Qena governorate, and listened to the powerful statement this community is conveying to the rest of the country to put an end to the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). The whole village, from young schoolchildren to village elders, came together to denounce FGM as "violent", "wrong" and "harmful."

Female circumcision, also called female genital mutilation (FGM) is widely practiced in 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East. More than 125 million women have been subjected to different forms of genital mutilation across Africa and in areas of western and southern Asia, and 2 million women undergo the procedure annually. According to UNICEF, 91% of women age 15–49 undergo female circumcision in Egypt, where a young woman died recently following this procedure.

Egypt launched in Sinai the most vigorous anti-terrorist campaign ever undertaken in the country. The attack on 24 October, which killed 31 military, has been the trigger of this broad offensive of muscular means, including the establishment of a buffer zone 500 meters wide along the 14 kilometre of border with the Gaza Strip.

A friend is one who tells you the truth, not one who believes you regardless. I fear that for some politics means singing the tune the political leadership wants to hear and they can never convey bad news. But it is important to face negligence and shortcomings with courage, because burying our head in the sand will not protect us from imminent dangers.

Within the “1952” – or “army” – family, power is transferred from president to president when the regime arrives at a crisis. For this reason, a new president must confront the causes that led to the crisis without sacrificing the constants of the regime. In other words, the new president must be seen to redraw political and economic lines, while simultaneously maintaining the regime’s constants, so that it appears to political and social forces which do not belong to the ruling class that new constants have been formed.

In August 2012, after a vicious attack on Egyptian soldiers in Rafah, I wrote an article about state policy towards Sinai, questioning mainly the presence of an actual strategy for the development of Sinai and for countering the growing threat of terrorism in such a strategic spot.