Political parties around the world typically vie for public support based on their ideas and platforms, pitting left against right, conservatives against liberals, and partisans of globalisation against skeptics. In Egypt, however, the real challenge for parties is not winning support versus competitors, but restoring credibility and standing to party politics itself.

I recall a recent discussion with one of the rising stars of Egypt s security studies. I tried to expose the main arguments on political Islam and the rift opposing the French academics Gilles Kepel, Olivier Roy and François Burgat. This sharp polemic went global, with all the main international media evoking it at some point or another. Kepel thought many Islamic schools, ulemas and believers went radical; Roy claimed radicalisation underwent a process of Islamisation (and not the other way around), and Burgat believed the rise of Islamism was a new and much needed anti-imperialism. I thought my friend would be sceptical, as he has a very elaborate knowledge of the issue, mastering the details and the history. So I was very surprised by his reaction. He did not hide his admiration and said: "Well, these are real debates. The three have ideas. This is a clash of ideas, of great narratives. We badly lack this. We may have a better knowledge of the facts, we know and understand the actors, we are not fooled by them, we may sharply differ on policy recommendations, but we do not have this."

President Trump s turn toward a general who radiates a calm sense of command signals he is truly distressed. North Korea s missile tests, massive legislative failures and record-low poll numbers would rattle anyone, but must surely be worse for a man whose constant claims to confidence and success suggest that he is, in fact, deeply conflicted about his own competence. In addition, for a man who prizes loyalty and surrounds himself with family instead of those with policy expertise, Donald Trump s elevation of John Kelly to a position in which Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner will report to him instead of directly to the President further speaks to a sense of inner panic. A respected Marine Corps general, Kelly is expected to bring order to a White House that is perhaps the most chaotic and dysfunctional in history but is so burdened by infighting and intrigue that officials generally avoid uttering obvious truths, except when they leak to reporters.

President Donald Trump has finally done it. He has turned his administration into a B-level reality show. A cross between "Celebrity Apprentice" and "Jersey Shore," the characters in this White House drama even have theatrical nicknames like "Mad Dog," or Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and "The Mooch," referencing Anthony Scaramucci, the newest director of communications. And while it may be fun to watch, it s a travesty for our nation. We deserve a president who is thoughtful, informed and focused on working for all Americans. Instead we have Trump, who seems preoccupied with creating a televised spectacle.

As the parliament decides on the legislative authority’s position regarding the 2016 maritime borders demarcation agreement between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, it becomes clear that it supports the deal against the judiciary opposing the situation. Behind the position of the judicial authority opposing the agreement, there are great powers which the regime and the ruling elite know very well. These powers are not only related to the positions taken by the majority of the political parties, civil society and former prominent leaders of the army, such as Shafik and Annan; above all, there strong popular opposition to the agreement, to which the executive and legislative powers are trying to turn a blind eye.

US Vice President Mike Pence travels to Eastern Europe on Sunday to meet with important US allies. The visit -- with a subtext focusing on the future of US-Russia relations under the Trump presidency -- will see stops in Estonia, Georgia and Montenegro from Sunday to Tuesday, comes in the wake of the US Senate and House of Representatives votes this week to impose new sanctions on Moscow.

Since the annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and the subsequent involvement of Russia in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Western powers -- led by the United States and European Union -- have been remarkably firm in maintaining a united front when it came to the hard business of dealing with Russia. This was nowhere more notable than in the West s use of economic statecraft as the primary tool in exerting pressure on Russia to change its policy concerning Ukraine. The sanctions regime that gradually came into effect targeted strategic sectors of the Russian economy, including energy, defense and finance. But as well as hitting Russian entities, Western firms also suffered.

Conflict remains the world s greatest problem; conflict prevention our biggest hope, but if we do not face down crime and uphold justice, we simply risk swapping the challenges. Over the last century crime has been transformed. Mobsters are more likely to be board members of companies; safecrackers and getaway drivers have been replaced by worldly accountants and lawyers. Billions are laundered in the 21st century through the world s financial centres. UNODC s study of illicit flows showed that the combined proceeds of all crime amounted to some USD 2 trillion. If crime were a country, it would fall somewhere between Italy and India in the GDP league. That s enough money not just to bribe and corrupt the odd customs or law enforcement officer, but to pocket ministers and ministries in fragile and vulnerable countries. And crime also adores a vacuum.

Germany s Angela Merkel is often referred to as the "climate chancellor" because of her impassioned stand on climate protection, which has included the muscular arm-twisting of laggard nations in Europe and beyond -- as she demonstrated at the G20 summit in Hamburg in earlier this month. And during her three full terms in office, she s guided Germany s vaunted Energiewende, or renewable energy transition, which has vastly increased the number of renewables in the power mix to make up a third of the country s electricity supply today -- and an astounding 85% of power generation on particularly sunny, windy days.

Since the very first moment that four states – Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – announced their boycott of Qatar, followed by the leaking by the latter of the 13 demands presented by these countries to the Kuwaiti mediator, Doha alleged that these demands are inapplicable because they conflict with the principle of sovereignty, which it insists on and won t forsake. Turkey said the same and its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeated the same argument. From a purely formal perspective, it is the right of every state to stick to the concept of sovereignty as an absolute right in administering its affairs without any foreign interference, and in return it should refrain from interfering in other states affairs, whether directly or indirectly. This is done as a commitment to the principles agreed by the international community concerning good neighbourly conduct and refraining from harming others. According to which, the state s absolute sovereignty – even if we accept this concept – is not absolute in reality, neither in the external sphere nor internally.

After 25 January 2011, the army and police directed their efforts towards maintaining law and order. Many then considered the security vacuum that emerged a golden opportunity, enabling them to do as they please. As authorities did not have the time or the manpower to go after the corrupt and fraudulent souls, state and agrarian lands became free for looters.

During the last few months I followed the arrests of several young people who protested the border agreement with Saudi Arabia according to which Egypt would give up the Tiran and Sanafir islands. These protests, it should be noted, were all peaceful: no weapons were brandished, roads cut, or citizens or security personnel attacked. Protestors simply held posters against the ratification of the agreement, urging parliament to postpone its debate pending the opinion of the Supreme Constitutional Court. Since that time, the detention of many of these youths has been renewed, and some were referred to criminal trial on charges of inciting to demonstrations and joining illegal organizations, even though they are members of legitimate, legal political parties operating under state oversight.

Reports this week that US President Donald Trump s son, Donald Trump Jr., met Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, apparently believing she possessed compromising information on Hillary Clinton s election campaign, has added to the woes facing President Trump s White House. The irony, missed in much the reporting, is that whether she was part of some Russian "active measures," dirty-tricks campaign, or merely a sharp opportunist who knew the best way to get an audience with the Trump team, the Kremlin gains, either way. After all, for Russian President Vladimir Putin, being considered a Machiavellian grandmaster of geopolitical skullduggery arguably gives him more power than he deserves.

Wonder Woman” starts, as most stories do, with a hero on a mission, an evil that must be conquered, and, if executed right, a viewer already enamored. On that last front, “Wonder Woman” definitively succeeds. The movie opens with Diana Prince s upbringing on Themyscira Island, a Pandora-meets-Mykonos wonderland inhabited by the all-female, all-powerful Amazons. The island was created and cloaked from the rest of the world by Zeus, and the Amazons are training on it to defeat Ares, the god of war, who wants to see humanity perish. Diana was molded out of clay to spearhead this battle. She is strong and effeminate, noble and naïve, a compilation of juxtapositions put together charmingly by Gal Gadot. The movie is set during World War I, and, with the help of Chris Pine as Steve Trevor, Diana sets out to end the war to end all wars by killing Ares.

Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins, follows the origins of one of DC Comics most popular superheroes from her life among the Amazonians in the sheltered island of Themyscira to the frontlines of World War I. The film is beautifully shot, with remarkable colours, solid acting, and impeccable choreography. It cannot, however, escape its political dimensions. Diana (played by Gal Gadot) is raised on the island, knowing that the duty of the Amazonians is to protect humanity from the corruption of Ares, Greek god of war. From its first moments, the film uses colour schemes to set up a dichotomy between the idyllic landscape of the dome-enclosed island—endless green and Mediterranean blues evoking peace—and the world outside: grey, chaotic, violent. The duty to protect humanity against the violence of war is the driving force behind the film. Diana leaves the island because she cannot fathom that the death and destruction left behind by World War I could be anything other than the work of Ares. She vehemently defends humanity s goodness, repeatedly affirming that she need only kill Ares for mankind to return to its peaceful ways.

The curtailing of electricity to Gaza conducted by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah in connivance with Israeli authorities seriously hurts the people of that region. They have become the victims of the political fighting between the Palestinian Authority (PA) ruled by Fatah, and the Palestinian leadership in Gaza ruled by Hamas. The PA pays Israel for the provision of electricity to Gaza. However, the PA has decided to reduce the electricity supply to Gaza from three hours a day to only two hours, thus worsening an already serious situation.

It s widely thought among the public and media that steep price increases over the last year were a result of government decisions to float the pound, institute a VAT, and cut energy subsidies. While largely true—all these measures have inflationary effects—it doesn t entirely explain the huge, recent spikes. There are other factors at work, related to the nature of markets and tools of state administration. The majority of our serious economists agree that the inflation seen in Egyptian markets in the past several months cannot be solely explained by higher import costs due to the devaluation of the pound or increases in fuel and electricity prices. We re now dealing with market instability that has pushed up prices beyond what can be explained by economics, especially for goods and services that are largely unaffected by the price of the dollar or fuel, even taking into account the secondary impact of inflation.

“We never dreamed our brother Mina would be a martyr. He s a hero, a saint just like Mar Girgis, and Mar Mina,” declares Mina s sister, Dimyana Fouad, in the wake of his death in the Palm Sunday bombings in Alexandria earlier this year. Huddled in one of their home s two rooms, the family passed a blood-soaked shirt around.

I get a lot of different responses every time I talk about my religion, but a very common response is usually a glazed look while I m talking followed by some variation of, “That s nice, but what about ISIS?” To many people, I have a watered-down, selective, “kid-friendly” version of Islam, and therefore my narrative is unreliable for what Islam really is. Religion, especially Islam, is set along a strange sort of spectrum, and Western media usually has a great time trying to decide how “Muslim” things really are. True to its definition, the two extreme points on which things are measured on this spectrum are very clear: Islam and humanity, with radical Islamic terrorist groups representing the pinnacle of all things Muslim

Founders and leaders of many parties that emerged after the revolution, including our party, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, have taken part in the 25 January Revolution. Long before the founding of these parties, many of these leaders played great roles in paving the way for the revolution and preparing for it. Besides several other democratic parties, these parties were keen on being part of the battles of Egyptians towards achieving the goals of the revolution. When the Muslim Brotherhood tried to monopolise power and started to create a religious authoritarian state, our party stood against them, together with the National Salvation Front, and took part in their ousting. Our party encouraged the various bodies of the state to move forward after the ousting, and it agreed to allow senior figures in the party to be part of the first government formed after 30 June.

The worst thing is for the people to pay the price of fiscal reform without getting its reward. And this is exactly what is happening now. Every economic decision inevitably entails a cost and a benefit. Under the program agreed between the government and the IMF Last November, which included currency liberalization, fuel subsidy cuts, and a VAT, the cost was clear: drastic price hikes affecting everyone with an overall inflation rate of 32 percent last year, and even higher for food.