Traveling or living abroad teaches you a lot of things in life. You not only learn new lessons, but also allows you to discover taboos or ideas that other nations have, which could be right or wrong. One of things you will find out when you live or travel abroad, is that people are not innocent angels as the media tries to frame it. Having said that, you will find that most people are law-abiding citizens, or if not, they at least try their best to obey the law.

President Al-Sisi called the political parties lately to combine in three big parties to be able to compete in any future election. In fact this is not the first time that someone suggests that Idea especially after the 25th January revolution.

Recently, the Minister of Transportation announced that there will be an increase in the price of Metro tickets. The new pricing structure is between 3 and 7 pounds depending on how many stations the passenger takes. Generally speaking, any increase in public transportation fees is normal. However, there are rules for these increases to take place. Last year, the Government also put through an increase on ticket prices to be 2 pounds instead of 1.

Lately the minister of education announced a new system for all education stages, once he announced it and all parents started to reject the new system and claiming that the new system will lead their children to be less competitive in the labor market. In fact, the history if amending the education system was never successful in Egypt and thatss why the parents dont trust the process from their previous experience and we all remember when “ Fathy Sorour” the ex-minister of education cancelled the sixth year in the primary school before they return it again.

In our life, we meet both good and bad people. When I say “good” or “bad” I don’t mean to judge people, I mean to express people who have left a negative impact in your life and those who have left a positive one. The key part that I want to discuss here is that sometimes you find yourself weak in the face of negative people, and your resistance towards them may be weak in the beginning. Nevertheless, you have to learn how to overcome these negative mindsets and push them out of your life.

It seems that the Egyptian Government cares very much about each Ministrys salary and pension. There are more than 90 millions every-day Egyptians who suffer from weak salaries and weak pensions. Lately, the Egyptian Parliament has been in discussions about the monthly salary for Ministers, which was determined to be at $42,000 monthly. The Parliament agreed that this salary range is weak in comparison to the standard of living in Egypt.

Anyone reading the news right now would perhaps be feeling as though we are close to having a third World War at the moment between Russia, Iran, and North Korea allying against the majority of Western countries. Even Arab countries could get involved, such as Saudi Arabia. The question on my mind is regarding Syria. Is Syria so important that it could cause a third World War? If it’s natural gas that is important, especially to Russia, then whoever will control Syria, will also be controlling any gas going in/out of Europe

After over 2000 years from the time that Jesus came to our world, we still find groups that deny His birth and other groups denying His resurrection and others even denying that He came to our world. This is, in fact, the acts of the devil who is always putting doubts and denial in peoples hearts to prevent them from enjoying this great event. As the Bible said, if there is no resurrection, then there is no hope, and that s what the devil wants to put inside each one of us: to become hopeless and confused until the time comes when we are not ready and to hear the voice of the Lord saying, “I do not know you.”

After the end of the Presidential Election in Egypt, there is one title we can describe this election with, “Lack of transparency.” One thing everyone notices in this election is how all media attempted to show numbers that support its opinion toward the regime and especially toward President Al Sisi, while not supporting the truth. There is one side, the Muslim Brotherhood who are well known to be against Sisi and his regime. They try to show that the votes were very weak and that only a few Egyptians went to vote in this election.

No one can doubt that the Liverpool player, Mohamed Salah, is a true example of a successful Egyptian living abroad. Salah has not only proved that he is committed to the team he plays for, but also, he keeps developing himself every day in a way that has made everyone admire him. Salah is an inspiration, and everyone wishes him success in life. He started from small beginnings until he became one of the most famous Egyptians around the world.

As the Presidential elections are coming close, we begin to see a lot of people asking numerous questions about whether or not they should partake in the process. Generally speaking, participating in voting is positive, with a positive outlook, and everyone needs to hold on to that. However, many may say that that they want their vote to reflect their interest, which, at the current moment, does not exist.

Nowadays, if you asked anyone working in the media what they do for a living, their answer would be without a doubt, that their job is to support the current political regime and any regime to come. An example of these people is Mostafa Bakry, Ahmad Moussa, Khaled Salah, to name a few. When you ask any of them why the do what they do, they will convince you that they are defending Egypt against the huge conspiracy theory that nobody else sees except them and the regime they support.

Judging others is one of the most horrible things anyone can do in this life. However, in the Arab World and in general, we see a lot of people judging others and, in most cases, we are happy to observe or participate rather than condemn it. Recently, the Emirates singer Ahlam, discouraged people from saying, “God have mercy” for the famous Indian actress Sridevi who died last week in the Emirates. Ahlam distastefully proclaimed that according to the Quran, she shouldn’t ask for mercy for non-Muslims.

If anybody has been turning on the TV and watching sports, they would have noticed the Olympics that have been going on in South Korea these past two weeks. First let s state the obvious, yes, these are the winter Olympics. But even so, that didn t prevent a lot of Californians and Europeans from competing in these games. So, I will not penalize the Egyptians because we do live in a desert after all! But you know when I think about the Summer Olympics, where were the Egyptians?

Recently, the Interior Ministry arrested Abdel Menaam Abou El-Fotuh, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, also the leader and President of the Masr Al-Qawyia Party. Before that the army also arrested Samy Anan, the ex-chief of the military when the military council governing Egypt was forced to retire in 2013, when the Brotherhood was in power. Actually, most of what we call “Liberal Parties” announced its support for Sisi for a second term. They were adamant that this stage in the country requires a strong man like Sisi. It appears they forgot all the principles that the Constitution is built on, such as every party has the right to be in power.

The operations that the Egyptian Army announced yesterday, is not that from Turkey. The time and amount of soldiers taking part in this military operation puts forth many questions. Lately, we have all come to know that the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs had mentioned that Turkey will search for gas and oil on the Egyptian Mediterranean border, claiming that they have the right to that area.

In his last speech, Sisi tried to warn Egyptians from what he called, “The evil.” Sisi confirmed and emphasized that he will prevent any corrupted person from sitting on the Chair of Presidency. Sisi was speaking as if he was a dictator who can allow and prevent whoever he wants from becoming President. I was hoping that Sisi would rely on the law and courts to prevent any corrupted people from electing themselves as a President. However, it appears that Sisi is relying only on himself, much like Dictators would.

I have talked in the last article about the danger of leaving the political life empty especially that during the last four years of Sisi period, we didn t see any try to refresh the political life. What does this mean? In my opinion that means that Sisi wants to run for more than 2 periods and that for sure requires to amend the constitution and that what we can see and feel from the last statement by the chief of the parliament.

Recently, I had the opportunity to celebrate New Years eve and Epiphany in a church that I had not visited in a while. Looking around at the congregation, I found myself wondering, “Is everyone as nervous as I am?” Yes, I am not going to stop going to church just because something might happen. But at the same time, what if something does happen?

In the coming few months the presidential election will occur and from what we can see that the current regime doesn t have any will to improve the political life or even consider it. For the first time in the history we see people from political parties announce their support to a person outside of this party.

Any country measures its success by how much control it has on the most aspects of the life starting from the agriculture control to control the rules and laws that could be used in the court. Having said that, I can t see any control to the Egyptian government on any of the mess that Egypt live in right now. Lately, I had chance to visit one of the villages I get used to visit when I was child, the village that was full of green and plants; I was surprised to see it full of ugly building and cement.