Egypt experienced the taste of both wins and losses last month. The big win came via the national football team when it won in a very difficult match that qualified it directly to participate, after 28 years absence, in the next World Cup to be held in Moscow. As for the loss, it happened when Egypt s candidate for director-general of UNESCO, Ambassador Moushira Khattab, didn t qualify for the final round of the selection process. Between the two events, it was announced that Egyptian Intelligence had succeeded in reaching a new agreement to reduce escalation in southern Damascus with the participation of armed factions, including Jaysh Al-Islam (The Army of Islam), Jaysh Al-Ababil (Bird Flocks Army) and Aknaf Bait Al-Maqdis (The Environs of Jerusalem), under Russian auspices.

I imagine many officials and staff at the General Authority for Investment (GAFI) and the Ministry of Investment —some of them old colleagues of mine from my tenure as GAFI chair from 2004 to 2007 — felt a pang of frustration when it was announced Tuesday that Egypt had fallen in the rankings, from 122nd to 128th, in the World Bank s Doing Business Report 2018. The annual report compares business regulations and operations in 190 countries using 10 indicators, each including a set of sub-indices. Egypt, unfortunately, saw no improvement last year save in one field — protection for corporate minority shareholders — while it declined or remained the same in all other areas. The biggest drop was in the indicator that measures the ease of starting a business.

Recent news stories about the Trump White House and the fears voiced by prominent legislators like Senator Bob Corker raise a serious question: Is it time to consider the unthinkable and look at the options offered by the 25th Amendment? While this kind of discussion seemed premature a few months ago, there is mounting concern that the President could spiral out of control and, if this is the case, with his finger on the nuclear arsenal, be a danger to the Republic.

Recent developments regarding the resignation of Lebanese PM Saad El-Hariri while in Riyadh, as well as the Saudi leadership s detention of dozens of top figures in a corruption probe continued to top Middle East affairs press coverage on Monday. “Confrontation or escape?” wrote Al-Ahram journalist Maher Maqlad about El-Hariri s resignation.

Foreign Affairs Minister Sameh Shoukry wrote a new article published on the ministry s blog, coinciding with President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi s launching of the International Youth Forum in Sharm El-Sheikh. The forum was also the subject of other op-eds in Sunday s daily local newspapers. Shoukry dedicated his article to presenting the efforts of the Egyptian government in empowering the youth. Two facts he stated are that young people led the change in 2011 and 2013 and they represent over half of the population.

One day, History will acknowledge that the Balfour Declaration was a crime committed against the Palestinian people, against humanity and its values of civilization. A crime that paved the way for a series of other crimes, the most heinous of which was the crime of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people in 1948, leading to the displacement of 70 percent of its sons and daughters and the demolition and perishing of 400 Palestinian villages and towns. One of the most horrible oddities is that this declaration, issued by the British government, lacked any legal foundation, for what Britain gave to the Zionist movement was the land of another people, over which it had no right and no authority.

Many long hours passed before the Interior Ministry released a statement on what happened in Wahat. I don’t know what to call it until now. Shall I call it a terrorist attack? Or a clash with a terrorist group? We understood from the statement that there was a plan for this raid, after national security agencies received information about terrorists in that area, and that the forces were searching for them. But what happened after proved that this information was meant to hunt down our sons who have been targeted with “heavy weaponry,” according to the Interior Ministry statement.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has developed a distinctive Editorial Guideline that compel its journalists and correspondents to follow strict rules aimed at transmitting events independently, professionally, and in a disciplined and impartial manner. Through these guidelines (which are available online), its successive developers address many problematic issues in media coverage of major events, such as wars, regional conflicts and terrorism. The corporation (along with several international media outlets) believe that the term “terrorism” has not been defined by different states, countries, or cultures. Even the United Nations itself has not agreed on a single inclusive definition that can be invoked and relied upon to classify what is a terrorist and what is not a terrorist in armed clashes taking place across the planet.

With every incident of terrorism or attack on the armed forces or police in recent years, all Egyptians, with the exception of a few malicious gloaters, unfailingly express their anger at such criminal acts, their appreciation for martyrs sacrifices and solidarity with their families, and their insistence on closing ranks behind the state and its institutions in their war on terrorism. The same happened last week, following the Western Desert battle, in which policemen gave their lives for the nation.

My bet is that those 9.4 million, and the many others who have fallen through the cracks, are Egyptian by birth, schooling, and rearing. Yes, they lived much of their adult lives elsewhere, and yet, in spite of the distances and the miles, Egypt remains in their hearts, and they carry deep-rooted affection towards it.

Cairo s relations with the US administration and with Saudi Arabia had worsened and reached new lows. Egypt was unable to achieve significant progress on many key issues. No tangible improvement had been seen in Libya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Palestine, etc. Relations with Italy were deeply affected by Regini s death. Egypt, after a promising beginning, was unable to develop its relations with Russia, and some countries still boycotted Egypt s airports. The world media coverage was impressively negative. The obviously wrong handling of some important crisis deserved criticism – and got it.

On the 24th of October 2017, we celebrate together with the Arab Republic of Egypt the 72nd anniversary of the UN Charter coming into force in 1945. Egypt, one of the founding members of the United Nations, celebrates the global commitment, along with the other Member States, to global peace and security. The UN-Egypt partnership is one that is enshrined in mutual respect, advocates for universal norms and values that promote the protection of human rights as laid out in the UN Charter, and supports the development needs and priorities of the most marginalized communities and individuals. Egypt is a valuable and dynamic member of the United Nations. For the 5th time, Egypt is a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Egypt has also attained a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council and is one of the top contributors to peacekeeping operations globally. As underlined in President H.E Abdel Fattah el-Sisi s speech at the 2017 United Nations General Assembly, Egypt adamantly believes in the values of the United Nations. Moreover, he also stressed that the realization of these values is not only possible, but rather an obligation and necessity.

There is something the media must remember when it breathlessly reports on prominent Republicans speaking out against President Donald Trump. Sen. John McCain s recent criticisms, for example, are news, yes, and so were Mitt Romney s and Paul Ryan s and others in the past. They deserve to be reported. But viewers and readers of this kind of news, especially longtime conservatives who voted for Mr. Trump, receive this news in a particular way. They remember.

The last time Baghdad sent troops into Kirkuk to kick out Kurdish forces, I was in the first group of journalists taken to see the aftermath. Bloated bodies and blown-up trucks littered the road as we arrived. Fresh on the heels of the allied liberation of Kuwait in 1991, swaths of Iraq s downtrodden rose up against Saddam Hussein. The Shia in the south and the Kurds in the north were both brutally crushed. Around Kirkuk we witnessed the ugly aftermath of more killings. Kurds who had been gunned down, their bodies untouched where they fell. It was, as my wife -- then a CNN correspondent -- reported, "an object lesson in brutality." Although Baghdad s offensive in Kirkuk this week is tame by comparison, it is nevertheless an object lesson not just for the Kurds, but for the US -- and President Trump in particular.

It is painful and unfortunate that the Palestinian division has continued for more than ten years. What is more unfortunate is that the length of the division period and the failure of reconciliation attempts have meant that the current reconciliation efforts have been preoccupied with axioms and their details. These include matters such as the unity government assuming power and responsibilities, the mechanisms of operating the border crossings, when and how the measures taken as a result of the division would be annulled, and when the Gazans will enjoy more hours of electricity, instead of concentrating on the strategic objectives to end division and achieve reconciliation.

As the smoke over Raqqa slowly clears, questions about the governance of the Syrian city and its stability will soon need answering. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces -- with support from the US-led coalition -- have recently announced the full capture of what was until recently the de facto capital of ISIS self-declared caliphate. While some videos started to circulate showing members of the Syrian Democratic Forces celebrating the symbolic defeat of ISIS, others revealed the enormous level of destruction in the city. The two videos do not contradict one another -- they simply show two sides of the same story.

European leaders are set to discuss the increasingly difficult issue of Turkey at a summit this week in Brussels amid the deepest freeze in bilateral relations in years. Criticism of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan s crackdown following last year s failed coup and diplomatic bust-ups with Germany and the United States have taken their toll. Last month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a suspension of talks to bring Turkey into the European Union.

On Friday, January 16, 1990, the famous newspaper Al-Ahram published an article titled “Why do we not win the World Cup?” At that time, the moment, and the joy, were like the moment and the joy that stirred all the Egyptians last week, when they took to the streets and squares and spent all the night living a state of ecstasy. In those days the talk was about the great hopes in the “honorable representation” (in the World Cup 1990), which caused a sense of insult, so I wrote the article not to do the job of sport critics, but out of expectations to Egypt s biggest victory in another more important game and cup which is progress and the exit from the underdevelopment circle, and from poverty to richness.

In Wag the Dog, a 1997 movie, a war is fabricated to cover up a president s sex scandal. It is a perfect example of how easy it is to work up hysteria over a non-existing cause. Imagine something similar happening in Egypt. Imagine a scenario that is farfetched and definitely preposterous. Imagine the Western world suddenly ganging up on Egypt and deciding, amongst itself, that, for one bizarre reason or another, Egypt erred big time and deserves intense retribution. It then attacks Egypt. Stop for a moment. Didn t the Western world attack and destroy Iraq over fake, fabricated causes in 2003? So, play along. It gets better.

A happy night it was when our national team qualified for the World Cup thanks to Mohammed Salah’s two goals and the efforts of the entire team, led by veteran Essam al-Hadari. It was all the more thrilling for coming in the apprehensive final minutes of the game, when the dream of the World Cup seemed irretrievably lost. But in the end, it was like a movie where the hero appears to save the day at the crucial moment and the audience leaves the cinema pleased and satisfied.

In the light of the results of the population census announced a few days ago, there is no excuse for executive officials collaborating with specialised experts not to draw conclusions, and accurately identify the social transformations that Egypt has witnessed in the last three decades on one hand, and the indicators that lead to a certain kind of development on the other. Consequently, they should be ready to think in a different way from the way they are thinking right now. According to the new results, Egypt s population has doubled during the last 30 years. It has increased from 48 million in 1986 to 95 million in 2016 within Egyptian territory.