Shortly after this year s presidential elections during a meeting with political party representatives at the Fifth Youth Conference in Cairo on 16 May, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi said there were too many political parties in Egypt and that they needed to merge into a smaller number. Although Al-Sisi had called on the political parties to unite their ranks in the past, this time round his statement was followed by actions on the ground that suggested that this latest proposal was more than just a suggestion.

Terrorism is a persistent and evolving global menace. No country is immune. Social media, encrypted communications and the dark web are being used to spread propaganda, radicalize new recruits and plan atrocities. The threat ranges from the crude tactics of lone actors to sophisticated coordinated attacks and the horrific prospect of terrorists using chemical, biological or radioactive weapons. Our response needs to be equally agile and multifaceted. That is why I am convening the first-ever United Nations High-level Conference on Counter-Terrorism this week in New York. Heads of national counter-terrorism agencies and representatives from international institutions and civil society will discuss how to improve international cooperation and build new partnerships.

We may think we know a lot about Saudi Arabia s Mohammed bin Salman, one year after he was elevated to Crown Prince. After all, the past 12 months have seen him blitz world capitals, wooing politicians, business leaders and populations alike promoting his vision for modernizing his country. In London alone, he lavished a cool $1 million on advertising during a three-day trip, according to a source with knowledge of the visit. The US got a two-week version of the same charm offensive.

When a politician with authoritarian tendencies takes office -- even in a democratic country -- there s no way to know what the future holds. It s easy to take comfort in the prospects for setting everything right in the next election, to feel reassured by massive turnout in protests against excesses, and to believe that democracy is being protected by court rulings, by Congress, and by human decency. But recent history in the many countries now governed by authoritarian populists has shown that there s more reason for alarm than for comfort, more reason to remain on guard than to relax.

Cairo, the third-fastest growing city in Africa, has suffered from traffic congestion and a lack of adequate and planned transport networks for years now, putting pressure on and posing a risk to its economic development. According to the World Bank, congestion in the Greater Cairo Metropolitan Area costs Egypt 3.6 per cent of its annual GDP, and it is therefore clear that Egypt s economic development is closely related to Cairo s expansion and transport systems.

The biggest concern for any society undergoing difficult economic reform is the condition of the middle class and how it is impacted. The primary measure of any economic reform plan is the middle class; if reforms preserve this class then they are on the correct path, but if the middle class begins to erode, then it is a serious problem. According to experts, even if the role and rhetoric of the government is to protect limited income families, the middle class remains the main indicator of success.

President Trump is heading to Minnesota for a campaign rally right in the middle of a severe humanitarian crisis that is taking place on our borders. The last time he appeared in the state was a few days before the election, when he railed against Syrian refugees who were pouring into the country. As children are now literally being torn from their families and sent into caged shelters, the President, almost like a comic book character, will likely use his time in the spotlight to rip into his world of villains -- the news media, the MS-13 gangs, the special counsel s investigators, and more -- and give his adoring crowd exactly what they want to hear: Trump, Trump and more Trump.

Every week is "interesting" -- in the apocryphal Chinese curse sense of the word -- when Donald Trump is President. But the past seven days left the world even more flabbergasted than almost any other in this mind-boggling presidency, as Trump strutted into the spotlight of world affairs, making grand pronouncements and sparking flames of fury at home, anxiety among US allies and glee among America s foes. Trump, of course, will declare victory on every front. But many of his actions this week left America diminished even if they made him stronger by satisfying his base.

Donald Trump and his eldest children were hunkered down with Washington lawyers at the President s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. It was the summer of 2016 and some combination of Donald Jr., Eric, Ivanka -- and Ivanka s husband, Jared Kushner -- had been meeting to help vet the vice-presidential candidates. Kate Brower But at this final, decisive meeting it was Donald Trump s wife, Melania Trump, a former model seemingly disinterested in the political world her husband had flung her into, who drew the bottom line on a running mate.

The votes were not even fully counted in the South Carolina First Congressional District primary before the verdict was decided. Congressman Mark Sanford, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, had lost to uber Trump supporter Katie Arrington. His loss was about far more than his election -- it was a warning that any Republican critical of Trump will face a firing squad from Republican primary voters. "Mark Sanford of South Carolina found out the hard way, in his surprise primary defeat," the New York Times reported, that "having a conservative voting record is less important than demonstrating total loyalty to Mr. Trump."

President Trump s abrupt departure from the G7 summit on June 9 and puerile parting shots at Canada and Europe underscore a somber state of affairs that many believers in the transatlantic alliance had refused to accept, until now. Washington in the era of Donald Trump isn t just an eccentric, out-of-sorts, old friend to Europe, but rather an opponent that wishes it harm. The Europeans have no choice but to respond immediately, which means taking bold collective action to shore up the euro and the crisis-battered EU itself, their best defenses against the storm that is raging on multiple fronts. This was evident long before last week. In fact, looking back at the highly undiplomatic barbs of the US s top diplomat in Germany, the freshly-minted Trump appointee Richard Grenell, Trump s actions in Quebec were even predictable. He sees one-time allies as enemies.

Surely, Vladimir Putin let out a smile when he heard it. The Russian president has many reasons to rejoice these days, all courtesy of President Donald Trump, whose latest stunning statement was a call for America s allies to bring back Russia to the world s most prestigious club, the G7, a group of seven wealthy democracies. The call is mindboggling for many reasons, not least of which is, well, the elephant in the room. There is no credible justification for democratic powers to invite Putin to their meeting and there are countless reasons not to do it. And yet Trump -- under the shadow of a special counsel investigation over the nature of his presidential campaign s relationship with Russia -- took Putin s side in a dispute with America s allies.

Last May the Oxford University World Literature Society held a seminar devoted to the poetry of the Lebanese poet Jawdat Haydar (1905-2006) as a “Call for Tolerance and Cohesion”. The interest of Oxford University in Haydar s poetry follows on seminars held in no less distinguished institutions, such as the Library of Congress in Washington and the Library of Alexandria, where Ahmed Abdel Moaty Hegazi and Hassan Teleb, among other luminous speakers, discussed the universality of Haydar s poetry and his poetic vision.

Changes to the education system are the first step to reforming the human mind in the new Egypt and the new Middle East. This is simply to sum up the answer to the question of who the new citizen is and how he can be created. In the past, ideas in books were sometimes simply memorised, but today things are changing, and discoveries and inventions have been non-stop. The language itself has changed to keep up with the recent technologies and not just in space science.

Egypt was in turmoil for several years after the 25 January 2011 Revolution, moving rudderless and with uncertainty about the ability of institutions, individuals, political parties, groups, media and press to lead society to safety and stability. Even though, state institutions and agencies closely monitored the situation and took action to maintain an even keel in the face of the storm that toppled other countries in the region. They addressed every development based on the higher interests of the state of Egypt.

On the surface, Harry and Meghan s royal wedding had all the glitz and glamour you would associate with such an occasion. But now accusations of racism-tinged media coverage have taken some of the shine off the gloss.It was a wedding fit for a (new) duchess: In one of the biggest TV events of the year, an estimated two billion people tuned in to watch Meghan Markle marry Prince Harry on Saturday in a joyous, if somewhat unusual, celebration. And media across the world were scrambling to examine every angle of the Meghan and Harry story. Read more: Royal Wedding: The world flocks to Windsor for Prince Harry and Meghan s big day Unsurprisingly, not everyone got it right. German public broadcaster ZDF came under fire for what was deemed racist remarks during its wall-to-wall coverage of the wedding; the journalists mused over the texture and styling regime of Meghan and her mom s black hair and repeatedly referred to the bride and her guests as exotic. Viewers and Twitter users were not amused. ZDF said in a statement that it takes those concerns seriously.

The government borrows money to meet its short- or long-term needs when there is a budget deficit. This is called debt. So, debt is a bill paid by coming generations in cases of obtaining loans for the purpose of narrowing a budget deficit without aiming to finance development projects. Or it may be a bill paid by the current generation in cases of obtaining loans to spend on projects with future returns for the benefit of upcoming generations. There are two economic theories regarding loans; the first calls for reducing debts as they burden future generations with their interest rates. Meanwhile, another theory assumes that higher debt is better than taxation. Which is correct? Let us see what can be found through history. Egypt has had foreign debt since the reign of Muhammad Ali Pasha, who depended on external financing (loans) to achieve economic development. The foreign debt kept mounting until Egypt became unable to repay its debts in the 19th century, resulting in Britain s intervention in the economy first, then occupation later.

Bobby Kennedy s death 50 years ago this week was more than a tragic political assassination. His presidential campaign s message of defiant hope resonated with a broad swath of politically marginalized Americans, anticipated the rise of Barack Obama s multiracial coalition, and placed racial justice at the center of American democracy in an unprecedented and transformational way. Peniel Joseph Robert F. Kennedy s groundbreaking campaign for president ended in the early hours of June 5, 1968. Shot shortly after winning the California Democratic primary, he died the next day. Historians often identify Kennedy s assassination, coming two months after Dr. Martin Luther King s horrific death, as a capstone to a year marked by angry demonstrations, political violence, and a degree of polarization that foreshadowed the stark divisions of our own time.

Every week, I offer a glimpse of the kind of intelligence assessments that are likely to come across the desk of the President of the United States. Modeled on the President s Daily Briefing, or PDB, which the director of national intelligence prepares for the President almost daily, my Presidential Weekly Briefing focuses on the topics and issues the President needs to know to make informed decisions.

I admit I believe in conspiracies and conspiracy theories, but I am not afflicted with political or compulsive phobias, simply because we live in a tragic reality in the Arab and Middle East region full of slogans and positions that are not related to what is happening on the ground or behind the scenes regarding relations and interests, linking powers that appear to be enemies but are discreetly allies and friends on the level of institutions and agencies. This is contrary to what is being fed to public opinion and citizens.

A year ago, on June 1, President Donald Trump staged a bells-and-whistles Rose Garden event to announce his intent to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement. In doing so, he paid little attention to many of his top advisers, the vast majority of major American companies, or his counterparts around the world. Looking back now, it is clear that this heedless act has damaged the global effort to contain climate change, and, together with two other fateful decisions, undermined US diplomacy more broadly.