2012 breathes confidence into real estate market
By Annelle Sheline CAIRO: Uncertainties had their impact on the real estate market in Egypt in 2011, but as the participants of Cityscape would note, the industry is looking at a…
Two Western journalists dead, Syria’s Homs pounded
By AFP DAMASCUS: Two Western journalists were killed Wednesday as Syrian regime forces pounded the rebel city of Homs for a 19th straight day, activists said, while calls mounted for…
Iran pushes on with nuclear work after failed IAEA visit
By Mohammad Davari / AFP TEHRAN: Iran's nuclear work will defiantly go on, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday, after UN inspectors left Tehran following talks that failed to…
High turnout in Yemen vote that ends Saleh rule
By Acil Tabbara / AFP SANAA: Yemeni electoral officials on Wednesday hailed a high turnout in a landmark vote that ended President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 33-year rule, despite boycott calls in…
Nigeria’s ex-leader to meet Senegal opposition
By Rukmini Callimachi / AP DAKAR: Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is in Senegal to observe and help mediate a solution to this weekend's contentious election, is meeting opposition candidates…
Israeli religious party denies coalition crisis
By Amy Teibel / AP JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's top religious partner said Wednesday that Israel's ruling coalition would not be shaken by the Supreme Court's annulment of a contentious…
Gamal El Ghitani on preserving ‘Egyptian-ism’ (Part 1)
By Heba Elkayal Gamal El Ghitani’s writing on Egypt is first and foremost sensitive to and celebratory of the notion of the Egyptian identity vis-à-vis its history, starting with Ancient Egypt…
Sarkozy at dusk
By Dominique Moisi PARIS: And the next French President will be…the Socialist Party’s candidate François Hollande. A month ago, any prediction uttered with such certainty would have sounded imprudent, if not…
Good and bad deficits
By Robert Skidelsky LONDON: “Deficits are always bad,” thunder fiscal hawks. Not so, replies strategic investment analyst H. Wood Brock in an interesting new book, The American Gridlock. A proper assessment,…
Tobin trouble
By Mark Roe CAMBRIDGE: European leaders are seriously considering a Tobin tax, which would put a small levy on financial transactions, thereby dampening trading. But will the tax do as…