ID card policy violates religious freedom, say rights groups
CAIRO: Human Rights Watch and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights called on the government to allow Egyptian citizens to list their actual religion on national ID cards and other…
Children behind bars
CAIRO: The dismal chapter in the life of Omaima, a 27-year-old from Qaliubiya, started when she signed checks on behalf of her elderly father. Her sister was getting married, and…
The soft power of the United Nations
Joseph Stalin once dismissed the relevance of "soft power by asking, "How many troops does the Pope have? Today, many self-styled realists dismiss the United Nations as powerless, and argue…
Furnace cities
It's possible to see, right now, what global warming will eventually do to the planet. To peek into the future, all we have to do is go to Beijing, Athens,…
Guarding optimism
The skeptics have unassailable arguments: History and a consistent record of failure are on their side. Expectations of success for the Middle East summit in Annapolis are further dampened by…
IN FOCUS: A True Civil Society
You'd be wrong to think that the current opposition parties in Egypt will affect any form of change in the coming years. Apart from the fact that they are farcical…
Sadat's Journey, 30 Years After
If "one man of courage makes a majority, as Andrew Jackson said, then 30 years ago, in November 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was such a man. His peace overture…
Techniques of deception: From Popper to Rove and back
In his novel 1984, George Orwell chillingly described a totalitarian regime in which all communication is controlled by a Ministry of Truth and dissidents are persecuted by political police. The…
Fresh water makes good neighbors
You're back, and you're in one piece! is a phrase that I have been welcomed with alarmingly often over the past two weeks. In Cambridge, it is apparently normal to…
THE REEL ESTATE: A civic lecture of 'Lions for Lambs'
In his acerbic 1972 political drama "The Candidate, American prodigy Robert Redford played an idealistic democratic senate candidate, Bill McKay, who ultimately wins after compromising his principles and "telling people…
