Comparing my window view of Cairo over twenty years ago with today, I can see that its weather has changed dramatically. It is also clear to me, having visited many countries since, that Cairo is not alone in these changes. The global implications of climate change on the environment have become obvious – even to non-experts.

I spent my childhood and youth, up to the time I graduated from university, between Rod Al-Farag, where our family home was located, and Shobra, where I went to school. Both neighbourhoods (though Shobra above all) are foremost among those historic districts of Cairo that physically embody the unique, cohesive national fabric of the great Egyptian people, both Muslim and Christian.

Throughout history, the concept of time has constantly been changing. It differs from culture to another and from age to another. Scientists and philosophers have discussed the concept of time, whether it is linear or circular, with an end or without, or subjective or objective. Moreover, in the topology of time, there are questions always raised for study and discussion. For instance, can time be represented as a line, if it is, where does it begin and where does it end? Is it only one line or not?…etc. Indeed, the concept of time is dealt with differently in these two philosophical movements: modernism and postmodernism. The last four years are seen as a revival of modernism concept of time, which has been adopted by President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.

It would be mistaken to reduce the current political conflict in the US to the clash between the current occupant of the White House and the US press establishment. President Donald Trump, in no time at all since coming to power, has succeeded in antagonising a vast circle of domestic and international parties, the only exception being Zionist circles in the US and in Israel.

I remember vividly the terrible day when our lives (our world) changed forever. I was listening to the radio in my apartment, a few blocks from Ground Zero, when the plane hit the first tower. I could hear the cries from the street below: “Oh, no, no, no!” “Oh, my God!” I ran downstairs just in time to see the second tower crumble like a sand castle. It was 9:59 am. I joined others rushing to the spot when a large group of people came running back shouting: “Go back, go back, for God s sake, go back!” We rushed back only to discover later that it was a false alarm, that there would be no more attacks on the towers after the second plane hit. Without fully understanding the significance of events, I felt that a relatively peaceful way of life had been replaced by a darker, more sinister one. A great sadness came over me. Soon after, we learned the details of what had happened, and heard stories and saw pictures of those who had thrown themselves voluntarily to their certain death rather than remain trapped inside an inferno. Richard Drew, who photographed one of the iconic images of that fateful day, the “Falling Man,” the lonely image of a man falling to his death with one of the towers in the background, said recently that for him it was the image of the Unknown Soldier. An estimated 7% of those killed in the attack on September 11 did so by jumping into the void from their offices.

September 13, 2018, marks 25 years since the first of the Oslo Accords was signed by Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn amid great fanfare. Many Palestinians hoped that they would finally be free of Israel s then-quarter-century-old military rule and have a state of their own. Having taken part for two years in the Madrid and Washington Palestinian-Israeli negotiations preceding the Oslo accords, and having seen the obduracy of the Shamir and Rabin governments about allowing the Palestinians anything resembling self-determination, independence, and statehood, I had few hopes for Oslo. Sadly, my pessimism proved all too well-founded.

Tourism for Egypt is not just a breath of fresh air that adds a bit of revenue or a touch of elegance. Instead, it is and always will be the backbone of the Egyptian economy and the livelihood of millions of Egyptians. Many people in Egypt have been severely hit over the past seven years, with all their turbulence, acts of terror and efforts made by the Muslim Brotherhood group and its supporters to send a message to the outside world that Egypt is an unsafe place.

Where is the world order headed, as the result of recent developments? The debate that governs the answer has evolved between two theories. The first is the “Clash of Civilisations” theory espoused in 1991 by Harvard University professor Samuel Huntington who attempted to forecast the nature of global conflict following the end of the Cold War that brought the victory of the US and capitalism over the Soviet Union and socialism.

The recent passing away of the late Egyptian, Arab, African and international thinker, the political economist and activist Samir Amin was a source of sorrow for many people around the world. This was particularly the case among those who were aware of the very important role Amin played throughout his life in raising awareness in the global South regarding the bitter realities of its relationship with the North and the negative repercussions this relationship has had for the countries and peoples of the South.

Of the many books and articles that appeared to mark the 12th anniversary of Naguib Mahfouz s death, no doubt Mohamed Shoair s outstanding work, The Children of Gebelawi: The Story of a Banned Novel (Al-Ain Publishing House) is the most important and enduring. The eminent literary editor s study of one of the most important Arabic novels ever follows the history of that great literary work from its conception, as it appeared in serialised form in Al-Ahram in 1959, through four decades of the battles surrounding it until the assassination attempt in 1994, and then the subsequent 12 years up to the time of Mahfouz s death. It is a profound and thorough investigation that packs elements of suspense.

In the previous article, we looked how important it is for Egypt to have an economy that is resilient to external and internal shocks without unnecessarily constraining the change, innovation, openness, and flexibility necessary to create a sustainable growth. The challenge for policymakers is to find the right balance; and to help them do this, we think it important they consider an emergent concept: agility. Most often applied to the corporate sector (the Agile Corporation), agility is also relevant to the wider macro-economy because, at its heart, it reflects the way the world is, not what we would like it to be. Part of the reason that central planning is a poor method of economic management is that economies are inherently unstable and unpredictable. These inherent characteristics mean not that it is hard to predict what will happen to an economy, but that it is impossible.

Since October 2017, more than 1 million women worldwide have shared experiences and solidarity with their sisters under the banner of #MeToo. They are saying that enough is enough. For too long, women have experienced violence in their homes, in public spaces and at work. For too long, this abuse has been normalized, women s voices have been silenced and their stories disbelieved. For too long, perpetrators have not faced consequences. It is estimated that there are 1 billion women worldwide living with the pain caused by gender-based violence. These women do not always go to the authorities to file formal reports, but the data that the World Health Organization helped UN-Women gather from dentists, surgeons, mental health specialists, emergency rooms and morgues illustrates how violence against women is a global health crisis. We cannot allow this to continue for another generation.

Many countries, international and non-governmental organisations, as ‎well as academic and research institutions all over the world, recently ‎celebrated the centennial of the birth of the great late South African leader Nelson ‎Mandela. During his lifetime, Mandela became an icon whose ‎fame and status went far beyond the national borders of his country, not ‎only to the rest of his African continent, but to each and every ‎part of the globe.‎

I picked up Al-Masry Al-Youm last Friday to find the headline, “We miss you, Uncle Naguib.” It introduced an article by the Egyptian journalist and television presenter Mufid Fawzi who recalls interviews he did many years ago with Naguib Mahfouz, although they seemed as fresh as though they were just done yesterday. Time for the great writer is unlike time as we know it, where the past is past and the future has yet to be. For him, time has a different nature. It renews itself with new and totally unfamiliar events and developments, which is when we “miss” the great man and wonder what he would have to say about this particular moment in time.

Every week, I offer a glimpse of the kind of intelligence assessments that are likely to come across President Donald Trump s desk. 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. NAFTA next steps: King of the North Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau probably doesn t want to be the odd man out in any revised North American Free Trade Agreement. We assess he is likely motivated to make a deal with you, even if it means making some sensitive concessions because he wants to avoid the costs of you reimposing pre-NAFTA era tariffs on Canada in addition to new tariffs you are threatening on Canadian cars. He probably believes getting shut out of a deal would thereby outweigh costs associated with showing some flexibility in NAFTA negotiations.

In a Salisbury restaurant -- not far from the where the nerve agent Novichok had been used by what Britain suspects were Russian operatives -- I had dinner where a man I at first took to be a bouncer turned out to be a magician. Several times during our meal, he performed card tricks at our table. He was good: No matter how hard I looked, I could not catch his sleight of hand.

As Britain s Parliament returns tomorrow from its summer recess, right on cue comes another attempt to blow up Prime Minister Theresa May. This time it s her former Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson. In his weekly column in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, he describes the government s Brexit negotiating position with the European Union as "white flag fluttering."

The recent Turkish economic crisis casts heavy shadows on the overall economic situation in Turkey and how this might also hit emerging markets. However, discussion about this subject is controversial and requires a fair understanding of the Turkish economy over the past two decades. One also needs to appreciate the historical, religious, political and economic relations between Egypt and Turkey before any attempt is made to explore the recent currency crisis in Turkey and expectations about its potential impact on emerging markets and Egypt in particular.

Not a day goes by without an incident sparking new questions about US President Donald Trump, many of them urgent ones involving critical and far-reaching issues concerning not just the US but the entire world. Is Trump going to wage war against Iran? There are videos on YouTube predicting how such a war could unfold, the weapons that could be deployed, the sites that could be targeted and the potential Iranian reactions. Will Trump be forced out of office as a result of developments in cases against his lawyer Michael Cohen and his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort?

It might at first look like a full-scale rebellion in Europe. Recently, the leaders of both France and Germany announced their determination to become largely independent from the US on security matters and even to "counterbalance" the US in global geopolitics. But upon closer inspection, much of Europe s "new" direction -- as vaguely defined as it currently is -- sticks to Cold War-era certainties and even, in part, reflects aspects of US President Donald Trump s worldview. A real rebellion would look quite different. Russia is giving the West plenty to worry about The Europeans grounds for dissatisfaction are completely legitimate: Trump has launched a trade war against the EU, thrown NATO s security guarantees into doubt and scrapped international accords like the Paris climate treaty and the Iran nuclear arms control deal.

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.