Last month, I met a remarkable UNRWA student named Aya Abbas. The 9th grader from Yarmouk refugee camp outside Damascus was the highest scoring student across Syria. Despite the extraordinary adversities she faced as a Palestine refugee child, including forced displacement from the camp where she was born and raised, she outperformed her peers in all subjects. Her courage and determination exemplify the commitment of 526 000 students at our 711 schools in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Gaza and West Bank (including East Jerusalem). It was because of students like Aya that I decided to open our schools on time this week, notwithstanding a shortfall of over 200 million USD— an unprecedented deficit in UNRWA s 70-year history. Many people expressed deep satisfaction for what they considered a courageous decision . However, the real heroes who deserve our solidarity are the half a million students in our schools whose faith in UNRWA—and by extension the international community---remains unwavering, despite repeated uncertainty and the absence of political horizon. Their courage should be celebrated by the world.

There have been many times in politics -- and more frequently since the rise of social media -- when that has felt like the most appropriate response to an outrageous statement. But never more so than when the 2013 remarks of Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the UK s opposition Labour Party, about British Zionists were revealed by the Daily Mail newspaper: "[British Zionists] clearly have two problems. One is they don t want to study history, and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don t understand English irony either... They needed two lessons, which we could perhaps help them with."

In Dublin s Phoenix Park, one of the largest city parks in Europe, final preparations are underway for the arrival of Pope Francis this Sunday. The park is mostly flat, home to wild deer and the Dublin Zoo, the US ambassador s residence, the headquarters of the Irish police force, an Garda Síochána, and the home of the President, Áras an Uachtaráin. But nothing dominates its surroundings like the immense white cross that was erected in 1979 when Pope John Paul II visited Ireland. Then, 1.25 million people -- at the time a third of the population of Ireland -- came to the Phoenix Park to witness him say Mass.

Even the most hard-core aid workers would have struggled to watch the initial images out of Yemen from a horrific airstrike on a school bus after a missile struck a crowded marketplace in broad daylight. Among the dozens of slain and injured children -- reportedly aged 6 to 11 years old -- was a young boy, screaming in pain, as medical workers struggled to remove the blood-soaked UNICEF backpack he was wearing.

There is a certain mindset in politics, present the world over and across the political spectrum, which distrusts expertise. That mindset is presently revealing itself in Australia, where this week a small group of conservative-minded members of parliament held the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, hostage over climate policy. Turnbull s center-right Liberal party had pledged to reduce emissions from Australia s energy companies more than a quarter (from 2005 levels) by 2030, a key part of its efforts to meet its international obligations. But several of his own MPs, led by his predecessor as prime minister and long-term rival Tony Abbott, forced him into a climbdown by threatening to vote against the legislation. Turnbull s government barely has a majority in the House of Representatives, and losing such a key vote could have led to a leadership challenge. Cowed, he dropped the pledge, and on Tuesday narrowly survived the revolt.

Just as President Donald Trump was openly pondering the possibility of lifting sanctions against Russia, Microsoft revealed it has uncovered yet another Russian intelligence operation aimed at assaulting America s democratic institutions and, it appears, at helping Trump. There is no indication that Russia is anything other than very pleased with the result of its 2016 election meddling efforts. Instead of lying low amid the political storm it triggered in the US, Moscow, it seems, is scaling up similar activities to influence the midterm vote in November.

Hezbollah s announcement of its impending "victory" in Syria may be a reaction against US sanctions against Iran, but the threat it poses is no less real. Hezbollah remains one of the most capable terrorist organizations in the world, which intends to continue expanding its reach. The international community needs to take a unified step to proscribe Hezbollah in its entirety and curtail its global crime and terror network before it is too late.

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.