The true economic challenge confronting Egypt today does not concern either our fiscal or our monetary policy – both are well addressed by our economists and are advanced further by international experts. Egypt s fundamental economic challenge, which our government is not addressing efficiently, is the Egyptian workforce s low productivity. As a society, Egyptians need to adopt a work ethic that truly values hard work, diligence and productivity.

Egypt is currently undertaking a major reform of its education system. By declaring the year 2019 to be the Year of Education, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi has clearly underlined the importance of such an initiative as one of Egypt s top priorities for building a stable and productive society. In that regard, wisdom prevailed among the drafters of the Egyptian Constitution when they emphasised the importance of education by incorporating seven articles, 19 to 25, mainly dealing with the state s obligation to support the right of every citizen to education, notably by providing free education, encouraging technical education and scientific research, and eliminating illiteracy.

One year ago, the Korean Peninsula had a rendezvous with history. After almost 12 months of threats of an impending doomsday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un surprised the world with a conciliatory message to South Korea on the occasion of the new year, 2018. One month and a half later, the sister of the supreme leader of North Korea travelled to South Korea as head of the North Korean national team taking part in the Winter Olympics.

It came as a cruel surprise to EU Ambassador to Washington David O Sullivan to find his name at the end of the list when foreign diplomats were called up to pay respects at former president George Bush Sr s funeral in December. As the longest serving ambassador in Washington, he had expected his name to be among the first called. This was not a slip-up. The State Department had degraded the EU delegation s diplomatic status from member state to international organisation.

On New Year s Eve, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi launched the Decent Life Initiative on his official social media accounts, whereby under his auspices ministries, community associations and non-governmental organisations alike are to focus on providing a decent life for the underprivileged groups in society. Here is his tweet in its entirety. “As I looked at last year in search of the real hero of our nation, I found that the Egyptian citizen deserves the title. Egyptians bravely confronted the battle of survival and construction, in addition to bearing the cost of economic reforms so as to achieve a better future for the coming generations.

The invention of the printing press by German inventor Johannes Gutenberg in 1440 marked the end of a dark historical period and paved the way for the European Renaissance in which books became a commodity that could be acquired by the masses. There is no doubt that the printed word is the foundation of modern civilisation. Just 60 years after Gutenberg s invention, the massive spread of the printing press had meant that some 20 million books had been printed in Europe by 1500.

In a few days, Egypt will take up the presidency of the African Union (AU) for 2019, signalling the trust of the African countries in the credibility and transparency of Egyptian leadership. The AU Assembly of heads of state and government has already elected Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi for a one-year term succeeding Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

In my dialogues with Noha, my daughter, she keeps repeating that one of the greatest achievements accomplished by the President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi was overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood from power. I replied that 6 January 2019 will be included in the list of great achievements. Noha responded by saying that in order to ensure these positive results, education is the guarantor. The president took the burden of reclaiming the Egyptian identity from the first moment when Egyptians saw him at the helm and heard him repeat "long live Egypt," not once, but thrice. Egyptians embraced this cheer after having lost it in the flood of names our country was called during different political eras where the name “Egypt” was absent. Egyptians have embraced the cheer out of love for the homeland.

In his classic book Polyarchy, the American political scientist Robert Dahl maintained that political regimes can be categorised according to two sets of criteria: pluralism/contestation and participation/inclusion. Liberal or constitutional democracies are distinct in that they are designed to allow for both high levels of pluralism/contestation and high levels of inclusion/participation, he said. In short, they are based on the twin pillars of liberalism and democracy.

Two days before being sworn in to the US Senate, Mitt Romney wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post outlining his concerns about President Donald Trump “not rising to the mantle of the office.” Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, did not exactly break new ground. His column mostly rehashed concerns that many Republicans have long held about Trump’s temperament and international relationships while stopping short of an active commitment to addressing the many problems Romney sees in the Trump administration. The op-ed also includes the kind of language that was standard from pre-Trump presidential candidates: “I remain optimistic about our future. In an innovation age, Americans excel. More importantly, noble instincts live in the hearts of Americans.” Romney has since said that he won’t run against Trump, but that he won’t necessarily support him either. It is difficult to read Romney’s column and not think that he won’t at least be part of any conversation about which Republican might be able to take on Trump for the Republican nomination.

One year ago, the Korean Peninsula had a rendezvous with history. After almost 12 months of threats of an impending doomsday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un surprised the world with a conciliatory message to South Korea on the occasion of the new year, 2018. One month and a half later, the sister of the supreme leader of North Korea travelled to South Korea as head of the North Korean national team taking part in the Winter Olympics.

What do you predict for the Middle East during the year that has just begun? What do you think will be the major currents that will govern this year and that will continue to flow into the next? Are there certain countries that offer the hope we seek? Often scholars seeking answers to questions of this sort have homed in on Iraq. The reason is that, despite all the upheavals, violence and bloodshed, that country managed to hold national elections twice and it now stands at a crossroads.

Rarely is change a way to bolster the status quo rather than to alter it. But this is precisely what happened last week when Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz decreed a sweeping government reshuffle affecting key ministries, the Political and Security Affairs Council headed by Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, and the National Guard, which is one of the country s most important security institutions. Some hours before the 33rd Janadriya Culture and Heritage Festival was due to round up its activities, I along with other participants at that event in Riyadh, learned that our host, the head of the National Guard who had sent us our invitations to the festival, had been replaced by the crown prince s cousin, Prince Abdullah bin Bandar bin Abdul-Aziz. Adel Al-Jubeir, who had been prominent in recent news on Saudi Arabia, was demoted from foreign minister to minister of state for foreign affairs while Ibrahim Al-Assaf, formerly the finance minister, was appointed minister of foreign affairs.

Countries will probably always engage in gruesome wars; however, another type of war is slowly creeping up on us, and it is equally calamitous. These upcoming wars may change course to focus on trade, eliminating weapons and replacing them with tariffs and taxes. The US, as it has done in countless standard wars, is now briskly waging the new trade wars. US President Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency and landed in the White House on an “America First” ticket and the promise of making trade fairer for American businesses. Implementing these promises is getting the US entangled in trade wars that are equally far-reaching in their consequences as conventional ones.

Not long ago, the UN children s fund UNICEF, in cooperation with the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood and with the support of the European Union, launched a campaign in Egypt to protect children from bullying and to end violence against them. Bullying is a form of aggressive behaviour that occurs in an intentional and repeated manner causing a child to feel hurt. But the fact is that bullying not only occurs against children. It can occur against adults too. A few weeks ago, Rahma Khaled, a woman with Down s Syndrome who managed to overcome her condition to become a TV host, asked at the end of her show for those who criticise her to give her a chance and to stop bullying her.

Sen. Mitt Romney told the country in a Washington Post op-ed Tuesday that President Donald Trump does not have the character to be president. Careful to explain that he agrees with most of the President s tax policies, lest Republican voters think that he has veered to the left, Sen. Romney expressed worry that Trump has not lived up to the nation s ideals. Sen. Romney s statement is not a profile in courage. Rather it is another example of the emptiness of the #nevertrump movement -- all talk and no action. Indeed, Mitt Romney essentially invented the brand. He was Jeff Flake before Flake started to complain. (This point is not lost on Trump, who tweeted Wednesday, "Here we go with Mitt Romney, but so fast! Question will be, is he a Flake?") Now Trump is at war with the generals

The latest salvo in that war came on New Year s morning -- not traditionally a time for recrimination -- in a presidential tweet that denigrated retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Trump tweeted, " General McChrystal got fired like a dog by Obama. Last assignment a total bust. Known for big, dumb mouth. Hillary lover!" This tweet followed an interview that McChrystal gave to ABC s Martha Raddatz on Sunday in which he described Trump as both immoral and dishonest. McChrystal had led Joint Special Operations Command during the Iraq War and had turned it into one of the most efficient killing machines in history. McChrystal later resigned as the commander of the Afghan War in 2010 following disparaging remarks that some officers on his staff had made to a Rolling Stone reporter about top officials working for President Barack Obama.

Elizabeth Warren announced Monday that she is forming an exploratory committee for the presidency -- which is as good as saying shes running. Its the first major announcement of what will likely be a crowded Democratic primary in the 2020 race, and potentially the most diverse in history. Watching Warrens announcement video, you can see her priorities are clear: she wants economic and racial justice and recognizes that the two are neither identical nor severable (unlike too many others on the populist left who believe class is a singular unifying force and racism is a secondary "identity politics" issue solvable by economic changes alone). She recognizes that equality of opportunity isnt just about what class you were born into; its also about how race and gender shape individual opportunity and mobility. Most strikingly, she doesnt issue a milquetoast call for unity and change, or demonize some amorphous threat to American families and prosperity. No, she names and shames her villains, from big banks who push for their own deregulation, to self-interested and moneyed politicians who cut their own taxes at the expense of the rest of us, to hate-mongers on Fox News and in the White House who peddle racism and misogyny to stir up an angry, bigoted Republican base. Thats a kind of honesty at the expense of political feel-good-ism that we havent seen much of in recent presidential politics.

And so it continues. With no end in sight to the government shutdown, President Donald Trump, who rightly said a government shutdown should be blamed on the White House, now seems unwilling to accept responsibility. As a result, hundreds of thousands of innocent government workers -- Democrats, Republicans and Independents -- are being forced to go without the paychecks they need to feed, house and clothe their families. (These are government workers who, by the way, Trump decided will not receive any pay raise in 2019.) And millions of citizens nationwide are being forced to go without some of the government services on which they may depend.

The map of extremist Islamist organisations in the region is highly fluid in terms of organisational structures and alliances. This has engendered a set of new threats to the security of countries in the region, stemming from the relocations of Islamic State (IS) group fighters, current or potential offshoots, and the ideas and instruments that the terrorist groups might bring to bear to polarise society, to identify targets and to stage terrorist attacks. One of the major challenges that the region may face is a fresh rise in the influence of Al-Qaeda, which appears to be undergoing a resurgence. Signs of this have been evident in 2018 in tandem with the sharply declining capacities of IS since mid-2017, first in Syria and Iraq and then elsewhere in the region.

I want to begin this piece on the deepening trials and troubles of a free press by pointing towards peace. The talks about talks between the warring sides in Yemen that took place earlier in December are a cause for hope. This was the first time Houthis and the Yemeni government have met, and even shaken hands, in more than two years. Yemen is called the worst war and the worse humanitarian disaster in the world today. There is only one reason peace talks have taken on this urgency: the brutal murder and dismemberment of a journalist.